Tempus Itio Uxorem
by withgirl
Summary: When Dark Swan is sent back in time to the season two premier to take away Regina's happy ending, how will all those from the present react? And when it is revealed that Emma isn't the only time traveler, will they all be able to handle the way that their lives will turn out? [Emma x Regina pairing, established SwanQueen for the future pair) Rating just to be safe at the moment
1. Chapter 1

**A.N Just to let you guys know, when a person's name is in bold it means that they are from the present, if any of you guys have a better idea for how to do it I would appreciate it since there will be more scenes with two of the same characters in the coming chapters.**

Chapter one  
"Can we do everything later, with a glass of wine…several bottles," Emma sighed as she tried desperately to keep walking.  
It was a lot to process.  
For some reason she seemingly had no problem believing that the curse had been real, embedding a sword in a dragon can do that to a person. It was the fact that she now had parents who wanted to know everything and anything about her. They cared and that was not something she was prepared for since she was moved to the fifth or sixth foster home in one year.  
Mary Margaret looked as if she were about to make a retort, but they were collectively distracted by the sight of townspeople running towards Milfin Street, led by Whale.  
Henry looked to Emma with pleading eyes. The boy was clearly confused, he knew he had every right to be angry with his lying mother, but that didn't mean that he was prepared to lose her completely.  
As if to confirm their theories, Archie ran up to the group, "please you have to help. Doctor Whale has whipped everyone up into a frenzy, they're marching towards Regina's house. They're going to kill her."  
"Great, lets watch," Grumpy grumbled.  
Emma and Henry instantly gave the dwarf a dirty look, but he just rolled his eyes  
"You can't allow them to sink to her level," Archie argued, "you have to help her."  
David and Mary Margaret exchanged a look, and David nodded, "if Blue is right than Regina could have her magic, they could be walking into a slaughter."  
With that, the group of heroes began to follow the mob.

* * *

"You wanted your queen, well my dears, here she is!" Regina brought her hands down, the silence quickly crashed away and she looked desperately around trying to figure out what happened.  
"She's powerless," she vaguely recognized one of the mob members shout, before they collectively began to walk towards her.  
Subconsciously, she stepped away until her back hit the wall, Whale instantly stepped forward with a huge, vengeful grin on his face.  
For a moment, Regina felt fear, but only for a moment.  
She was not afraid of death in any way, she was afraid for Henry's future. She had yet to transfer all of her assets into the sheriff's name until Henry turned eighteen and in what could be her final moments, all she could think was that she hoped that Miss Swan had a decent lawyer.  
"Let her go," she vaguely recognized someone say, though for some reason it felt too calm to be who she thought it was.  
Opening her eyes slowly, she was proved wrong, the voice indeed belonged to Emma Swan, but at the same time she was sure that it couldn't possibly be the same person that she admittedly had a felt some attraction to, if she were being honest she was a lot hotter than she had ever seen her. As her eyes raked over her body, she felt words fail her.  
For one she was dressed all in black leather that the queen was sure that she wasn't wearing just ten minutes ago, her hair was tied back into a pony tail and she looked slightly more pale than usual. The most striking difference however, was her eyes. They were gold with a few specks of emerald around the iris. To top all of this off, the savior had a small smirk that just reeked of evil.  
"Let her go," someone else called, sounding much more frantic and sheriff-like.  
Whale's arms fell to his side without further prodding, and stepped away to look between the two Emma's.  
Emma furrowed her brow at the crowd's reaction, before she finally turned to see herself leaning against one of the beams, and her mouth fell open, causing her other self to roll her eyes and walk passed her.  
Whale blinked a few times before he finally realized why he had come here, and jumped forward to grab the mayor, but before he touched her, he went flying backwards and rolled down the steps.  
The crowd gasped.  
"Oh, calm down," Emma drawled, "I did warn him." Turning to Regina, she smirked at the woman's dumbfounded expression, "relax your majesty, your acting like that's the first time you've seen magic."  
Regina blinked a few times, and finally managed to compose herself when she saw the looks of complete horror on the Charming's faces, and she would be lying if that didn't make her feel better, except for Henry's of course.  
"Who are you?" the boy choked out, David grabbed him before he could step forward.  
Emma turned, and for a split second she reveled in how cute her ten year old son looked, but that quickly fell away as she replied mockingly, "I'm your real mom."  
Henry took a step back into his grandfather, "no you're not, Emma's right there."  
Regina internally winced, but decided that now was certainly not the time to dwell on her emotional pain.  
"Never heard of time travel?"  
Mary Margaret stepped forward tentatively, "you're from the future?"  
Emma looked at the woman distastefully, which caused her to shrink away slightly, "why? Did I not turn out the way you had always hoped, mother?"  
Mary Margaret suddenly felt strangely torn between happiness for Emma's last word, and horror at the implications of everything she was seeing. She had been trying to figure out why her eyes were so familiar, and she now realized just who they reminded her of, though she hoped she was wrong.  
"Are you the Dark One?"  
"What?" **Emma** asked, she knew she had a lot to learn about all of this fairytale crap, but she was pretty sure that she had never heard those words before. Though she would be lying if this didn't make her more curious than she usually would have been, after all it seemed to be her future.  
The future Emma turned to look at her absolutely mortified double, and just smirked, "you know, Mr Gold," she laughed as the confusion only seemed to increase. Turning back to Regina who had failed to say a word, she said, "I must say, your majesty, I'm impressed that you never killed me, I was truly irritating."  
Regina raised one perfectly plucked eyebrow, she would've agreed had her son not been there, so instead she said, desperately trying to maintain her mask of calm, "and why are you here?"  
"Just doing as I'm told," Emma chuckled darkly, "speaking of which, I should probably get on with it."  
Slowly she approached the mayor and she conjured a dagger, savouring in the slight fear that slipped through her façade.  
"No," Henry shouted squirming out of David's grip and standing in front of his mother.  
 **Emma** just about managed to shake off the shock at seeing herself perform magic for a second time and made to grab her son, but she was frozen in place in the next moment.  
"Henry, always getting in the way," her future self tutted, "I suppose it doesn't matter what order I do it in."  
Henry's brow furrowed, Regina was about to jump forward to stop the blonde from bringing the dagger down, but a purple glow enveloped the Dark One's arm, stopping her mere inches away from stabbing her son.  
Emma rolled her eyes, "persistent aren't we?"  
Regina and the Charming's furrowed their brows, clearly confused as to whom she was talking to, but it didn't take long before they got their answer.  
"I suppose it is a rather annoying trait," a smooth female voice sighed from behind Emma, and collective gasps from the crowd told everyone just who it was. "But did you honestly think I wouldn't follow you to save our son?"

 **A/N I hope you guys enjoyed, let me know what you thought and if your interested in a continuation**

 **As always I need to thank QueenApples for all her amazing help XD**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N Just because my formatting always fails me, past people will now be written like this [Emma] just so I can make sure its clear XD**

 **I should also note that the timeline is slightly different in this fic, 3B happened without the missing year. Hope that clears any up any confusion, but feel free to ask if you need to XD**

Chapter Two

"And what is your great plan your majesty?" Emma drawled as the distinctive clicking of heels came up behind her.

"No great plan as of yet," Regina replied as she pulled the ten year old version of her son out of the other woman's way and lightly placed him back next to his grandfather.

Henry looked at the woman carefully. She definitely looked like the woman who had raised him, but there was just something completely different about her, almost happier.

"Don't you think that you should be stopping Zelena first?" the Dark One asked as she was finally released from her magical binds, but this time the powerful sorceress stood in her way.

"One thing at a time dear," Regina sighed.

"Zelena?" **[Emma]** asked.

Regina turned and immediately her expression softened. She had spent the last few months of her life with the love of her life being a homicidal psychopath, she had to admit that it was rather nice to see those green eyes again, even if they belonged to someone who would take a year to admit their feelings.

"Not important," Regina replied.

"Is that really any way to talk about me, little sis?"

Regina groaned audibly and pinched the bridge of her nose and then looked up to see the remnants of green smoke billowing around the former green skinned witch who was currently brandishi]ng the dagger that had become the bane of Regina's life.

"I believe it's quite appropriate," she returned.

Zelena rolled her eyes and looked around to see that she had audience of half the town, waving her hand, green smoke engulfed all but the Charming family, sending them to the diner, "this is a private matter, wouldn't you agree?"

"Not really, it's common knowledge that you want to kill her," Emma replied.

"Shut up," Zelena scowled and Emma instantly clamped her mouth shut which caused the Wicked Witch to smirk manically, "I have to admit that this has to be the most inspired plan yet."

"When your string of plans are all failures, I suppose it's easy to consider the most idiotic inspired," Regina shot back.

"In all your years as the Evil Queen, have you ever commanded a person's wife to kill them before they ever even fell in love?"

Regina heard a little squeak from behind her and turned to see the colour seemed to have drained from Snow's face.

"Wife?" the princess repeated, clearly trying to work through the implications of the stranger's words.

"Regina's your daughter-in-law in the future," Emma supplied with a visible smirk, obviously revelling in her mother's discomfort.

"You…you and…" Snow's trained on the ring finger of each woman and then let out a small gasp at the matching rings they were each wearing. She then turned to [ **Emma]** with an accusatory look and said, "You marry Regina?"

The younger version of the saviour simply stared blankly at her mother, before her mental facilities seemed to return to her, "No, there is no way."

Collectively, the group all turned to the past version of **[Regina]** who had been standing silently throughout the entire conversation.

"Do you have feelings for my daughter?" Snow asked incredulously.

 **[Regina's]** eyebrows shot up and she instantly began shaking her head, though she wasn't quite sure why she felt so defensive, she could think that the blonde was attractive without it meaning anything after all.

"Of course not," she finally said.

"I forgot how stubborn you was," Emma laughed.

Regina rolled her eyes and replied, "Because you were so much better."

"I told you how I felt first," she said rather childishly, "so obviously I'm the more emotionally stable one."

"You tried to kill your mother two days ago," Regina retorted and ignored the shocked sound from her former-stepdaughter.

"And you sent a pirate to Wonderland to kill your mother."

"That was justified," Regina sighed.

"And mine wasn't?"

"No, it wasn't."

"Why?"

"Because my mother wasn't Snow freaking White," Regina shouted.

"You say that likes it's a good thing," Emma said angrily.

"You could certainly do worse," the mayor retorted.

Someone cleared their throat, making Regina and Emma turn at the same time to face the Wicked Witch, and say, "what?!" in unison.

"If you could stop with the lover's tiff, I would appreciate it, Dark One, if you do as I commanded."

Emma sighed and brought her hand up, only to be stopped once again by shimmering purple, "looks like I can't," she said over her shoulder.

Anger consumed the red heads face, and thrusting the dagger forward, she said, "Try harder."

Instantly the purple disappeared, and the conjurer of the barrier went flying to the side of the house, vines grew from the bricks restraining Regina.

Zelena laughed heartily at her struggling sister and said, "Come now, Gina, according to your little sob story, your used to this."

Regina finally gave up resisting and simply said, "You are insane."

Zelena's giggle increased and then she tilted her head at all of the people who stood before her, "there are just so many options here to make you miserable," she pondered aloud, and then walked forward to stand in front of her nephew, "I must admit, the idea of two of you witnessing your son's death is quite appealing."

"Emma…" Regina began.

The future version rolled her eyes, and replied, "you already tried that hopeful bullshit, it didn't work, remember?"

Regina shook her head and said, "I wasn't talking to you."

 **[Emma]** turned around and looked at the woman that she admittedly felt something for, but in all of her imaginings she had never even thought that they would end up as a couple, let alone married.

"Me?" she asked.

Regina nodded and said, "you are stronger than the darkness."

"That can't be true," Emma replied with a laugh.

"Shut up," Regina scowled, and her wife simply rolled her eyes while the former Evil Queen turned back to the saviour, "the darkness is controlling her because she gave into it, but that doesn't change the fact that both of you are magically strong enough to fight it."

"Magic?" **[Emma]** replied slowly.

Zelena shook her head and held up the dagger, "well while you attempt to fit three years of magic training into one minute, I think I'll just continue with my plans."

The darker of the two Swans stepped forward to carry out the command, and Regina said almost pleadingly, "focus on saving Henry, Emma."

[ **Emma]** nodded and watched as a green light appeared in her future version's hand.

Turning to look at the parents she had given up on ever having, she took a deep breath and tried to imagine a scenario in which she could possibly be stronger than the all-powerful Dark One that she would become.

Closing her eyes, she desperately tried to conjure anything to her hand, but she still couldn't associate herself with magic, even if she had clearly seen that she would be able to do it in the future, it was just too much for one day, and instead she just opened her eyes and shook her head.

Just as the Dark One was about to hurl the death curse at her son, she felt her arm shift to the right and it hit a bush which died instantly.

Letting out a ragged breath, she looked down at the arrow lodged into her arm.

Without hesitation, she pulled it out and inspected the bloody tip as she turned towards the archer, "hello mother."

 **A/N Hope you guys enjoyed, would love to hear what you guys thought and any ideas that you would like to see in this fic XD**


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter three

"Didn't think you had it in you," Emma laughed as she inspected the tip of the arrow.

Snow took a deep breath and nocked another arrow, aiming it at her daughter with shaking arms, "stay away from Henry," she said.

"Whatever happened to, 'I'll never hurt you'?" the blonde asked in faux hurt as she levitated the arrow.

Snow let out a ragged breath and replied, "I never thought I would need to."

Emma tilted her head, "oh, I get it, what you actually meant was 'I will never hurt you as long as you remain the perfect little saviour', you know in the interest of fairness, you probably should have let me know that there was terms and conditions to having parents."

Snow didn't bring the bow down, though it did look as though the comment had physically crippled her, "if you was in your right mind, you would thank me for this."

"When will you people understand that this is who I am?!" she asked as she stalked towards her mother, "face it, I like the darkness. It's almost as if you ruined Lily's life for nothing, isn't it?"

 **[Snow]** and David exchanged a fearful look, and Emma quickly spun to look at their reaction, "that's right, your secret gets out."

 **[Snow]** knew that this piece of information should have scared her, but all she could do was stare at the arrow that was floating next to the future version of her daughter and think that a moment ago, it was lodged in her arm. Never in her life had it occurred to her that she would need to physically harm her child, and now that she finally knew who her daughter was, she was more than sure that she loved her more than life itself, that she would try every other option before she resorted to something like that. Despite this, however, she just saw a future version of herself launch an arrow at Emma, and as she snuck a glance at **[Emma]** she saw the guarded look that she was wearing, clearly the words about having terms and conditions to having parents had struck a chord with the saviour.

Emma turned back to the future version of her mother and lifted her hand making the arrow stop just shy of her face, "see how you like it, you may even thank me for it," she growled.

Snow turned away from the tip and winced, "Emma…" she began, but after all this time, there was just no more words.

The arrow went flying away and embedded itself in the concrete, "I don't care about your family issues," Zelena said, "you have eternity to brood about how mommy and daddy failed you, now do as I commanded."

Emma rolled her eyes and said over her shoulder, "you're going to need to be more specific."

"What?" Zelena asked with an exasperated sigh, she honestly didn't know it was possible to meet a family as irritating as the Charmings, she just wished that she didn't have to be related to them through marriage.

By way of explanation, Emma waved her hand and a lanky version of Henry stumbled out from around the corner of the house.

His eyes widened as he saw his mother trapped against the side of the house, along with the dumbstruck looks of each of the past versions of people.

"Which one do you want me to kill?"

"What the hell, Snow?" Regina shouted.

Snow let out an exasperated sigh and replied, "he followed me, I told him to hide."

"I told you stay behind!"

"Oh, I'm sorry Regina, clearly you didn't need my help," the princess shouted.

"It's not grandma's fault, mom," Henry defended and rolled his eyes at his younger versions reaction to him calling Regina 'mom' so casually, "oh, grow up," he said.

"Henry!" Regina and Snow scolded at the same time, which caused the past versions of themselves to exchange a completely shocked look.

Zelena pinched the bridge of her nose and said, "kill the younger one and do it before more of you appear."

"Too late," David announced after he appeared from the same corner that Henry had just come from and Zelena ran her hand across her face in frustration.

"Is that all of you?" she sighed.

"Where's Neal?" Snow asked instantly.

"Why? Is shooting one of your children not enough for you?" Emma taunted.

"You shot her?" David gaped.

"We can talk about this later, David," Snow hissed, "Neal?"

"He's with Ruby," he replied.

"Who's Neal?" **[Henry]** asked as he saw **[Emma]** visibly pale at the name.

"Your uncle or your father?" Emma asked with a smirk.

"Father?" he asked, "his name was Neal?" he turned to **[Emma]** and asked, for some reason that he couldn't quite pinpoint, he just didn't feel like this Neal could be the fireman that he had been told about.

"Well technically his name was Baelfire, so all three of your parents are liars," she replied.

 **[Henry]** looked up at the blonde standing near him and she refused to meet his eyes, mostly because she was trying to work through the implications. Neal was somehow involved in the fairy-tale crap?

Zelena let out a frustrated growl and said, "this is pointless, I command you to take me away from here."

Zelena and Emma disappeared in a cloud of black smoke and Regina fell from the side of the house.

Henry ran forward and helped her up, "are you okay?" he asked.

Regina sighed and brought him into a hug, "where's Tamsin?"

Henry winced and said, "she may or may not be with Ruby."

"Henry…" she said warningly.

"Why am I in charge of her?"

"Because she's seven!"

"Mommy," a girl shouted and ran straight towards **[Emma],** "you're not mean anymore."

The girl quickly hugged her legs.

 **[Emma]** looked over at Regina, who said as kindly as possible, "Tamsin come here."

The girl shook her head and replied, "you told me to stay away from mommy while she's mean."

"You did," Henry smirked.

Regina was about to reply, but was interrupted as **[Snow]** fainted.

 **A/N Hope you guys enjoyed, I would love to hear what you guys thought XD**


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter four

"Snow," **[David]** whispered and she cracked her eyes open to find that she was on the couch in her apartment.

For a moment, she considered that everything she had just seen must have been a dream, but the pain in the back of her head begged a differ. Plus the second she sat up, she zeroed in on the miniature version of her daughter. Well she wasn't exactly a clone, for one Tamsin was a brunette and had Regina's complexion, but she had the Charming green eyes, nose and chin. By all rights, her future granddaughter was completely adorable, but she was also the symbol of something that completely freaked her out. Tamsin was clearly the biological child of both Emma and Regina, which meant that they were indisputably each other's true loves.

"Regina," **[Emma]** said almost desperately as the little girl clung to her harder.

Regina sighed and walked over to the stool where **[Emma]** had sat upon only to have Tamsin instantly climb into her lap.

She picked up the girl who cried out a protest, but still allowed her mother to pull her away.

Henry came over and took his sister, "come on, Tam, come and help me write the story," he whispered, in the past, Regina found it adorable that her son asked his sister's help when performing his duties as the Author, but now it just seemed bittersweet considering what he would be writing about.

"Writing the story?" **[Henry]** asked with a furrowed brow as he watched his older version took the girl up the stairs to Emma's room.

Regina stared at the ten year old version of her son for a moment and though she knew that this was certainly not the time, she couldn't help but notice just how cute he was. Now that he was in his final year of high school, he was far less adorable and more broody at times, she was glad that she had Tamsin, she had no idea what she would do when she turned into a teenager.

Blinking away the thoughts, she cleared her throat and replied, "it would probably be best if you didn't know everything about the future."

The boy tilted his head, he was half expecting a lie, but she seemed to be treating him with a lot more respect than she ever had in the past. As he realised this, he smiled broadly at her, a smile which was quickly returned.

 **[Regina]** watched the interaction for a moment, she knew she had been uncharacteristically quiet throughout this entire situation, but a lot had happened to bring her to silence.

First of all, there was the fact that the saviour would be in the Dark One in the future, she would apparently become some kind of hero who willingly worked with the Charmings. Then there was the fact that she would one day marry Miss Swan, she was adamant that there was no way that could ever happen, but now there was a little brunette, green eyed piece of proof of their matrimony.

To top off all of the weirdness was the sight of her eighteen year old son who seemed to care more about her than his ten year old version seemed to be capable of.

Despite all of this, she had one burning question, "I have a sister?" she finally allowed to leave her mouth.

Her future self looked over at her as if she had just realised that she was actually there, and replied, "does it really surprise you that mother lied?"

She considered this for a moment and shook her head, "and she hates me, because…"

"Because she's bat shit crazy," Snow suggested.

Regina shook her head and turned to her mother-in-law, "you really know how to hold a grudge."

"She tried to take my son and now she is controlling my daughter, forgive me for being peeved, besides, look who's talking."

David came up behind her and placed his hand on her shoulder, "it's going to be alright, Snow," he whispered.

"What did you do to Emma?" **[Snow]** suddenly piped up.

Regina's eyebrows shot up, it was a rather surreal experience to be berated by two versions of Snow White at the same time, not that she could ever take either of them as a serious threat.

"Nothing," she replied instantly.

 **[Snow]** ignored the reply and stood off the couch, "am I to believe that there is no correlation between you marrying her and her becoming the Dark One?"

"If there was a correlation, do you not think they would be on the same team?" Snow shot back.

"Why are you defending her?" the younger version asked incredulously.

"Because she is not the problem, in fact she is part of the solution. Now for once in your life, sit down and listen to someone else," Snow seethed.

 **[Snow]** blinked a few times and fell back into her seat on the couch, if anyone could convince her to do something, it was certainly herself.

"Mom," Henry shouted as he ran down the stairs.

Regina managed to tear her attention away from the bickering pair and said, "What's wrong?"

"Tamsin has a fever."

"Of course she does," Regina sighed and made to walk towards the stairs.

Henry quickly held up his hand and shook his head, "she said she wants 'mommy'."

Regina pinched the bridge of her nose, "well that's not an option."

"It kind of can be."

"No," she replied instantly.

"She really misses ma, I'm sure if you gave her the chance she could be nice to her own child."

"She had no qualms about killing you twenty minutes ago," she retorted.

"Well she's adamant," he shrugged.

"She's also seven."

"Don't you think this will be just a bit traumatising?" Henry asked, "she wants the sick kitty song, which you don't know."

"So I can't look after my own daughter because I refused to watch that stupid show with Emma?"

Henry shrugged and said, "I'm just saying, Tamsin has done what she's told for months and now she can't understand why she isn't allowed to spend time with mom."

"Just play the song on YouTube," she suggested after a moment.

"I tried, she said it's not the same."

"I don't know what you want me to do Henry," Regina sighed, "I don't know the song!"

"I know it," someone said timidly.

Regina and Henry turned at the same time to look at **[Emma]** who had been silently watching everything going on around her. Though it severely freaked her out, she had to admit that she didn't hate just how attached Tamsin was to her, it was nice to know that she was actually able to be a functional parent, at least until she became a villain anyway.

"Are you sure?" Regina asked after a moment.

She nodded and rose from her seat, "yeah," she replied unconvincingly and followed Regina up the stairs.

 **A/N Hope you guys enjoyed, I would love to hear what you thought XD**


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter five

"I'm surprised that it took you that long to give up," Emma commented.

Zelena scowled at the woman sitting across from her on a stump. She had been horribly disappointed to discover that her farm house was not present in this version of the curse and had resigned herself to just sitting while she thought things through.

"I have not given up, double the Charmings was a rather insufferable experience, it would drive anyone to need a break."

"I couldn't agree more," Emma laughed, "though I must say that you could have chosen a more suitable place to have this 'break'."

The red head rolled her eyes and stood from the tree stump, "I didn't ask your opinion, Dark One."

"You didn't," she allowed, "but you could certainly benefit from it."

The witch was silent for a moment, and then took a deep breath, "why would you help me?"

"Because then you'll help me."

Zelena narrowed her eyes and said, "and what could you possibly want from me?"

"Let's just say that this would be the perfect opportunity to warn myself, help me show my past self the truth about having parents and then I will tell you the best way to hurt Regina."

"You would hurt your wife just to get back at your parents?" she returned sceptically.

"She probably won't be my wife if I can convince myself to get out of this town."

"And what of your children?"

"Do you not want this?" Emma shot back and rose from her own tree stump.

"Fine…how exactly do you plan to achieve this plan of yours?" Zelena sighed.

"Let's just say that I'm interested to see what Snow would do if she had to choose between her children."

* * *

Tamsin snored contentedly and brought her arms tighter around the past version of her blonde mother, of course she had no idea that there was anything different about her. All she cared was that, under her brunette mother's rules, she was now allowed to spend time with her.

 **[Emma]** tried to move the little arms away from her stomach but she found that she was being held in a vice like grip and decided that it would be easier to just wait until she naturally let go, she was not yet ready to admit that this felt amazing, not least because Regina was in the room.

"So you don't hate me?" she said after the silence became too much.

Regina blinked out of her thoughts, she was sincerely surprised to actually hear her talk in her real voice, she had been putting up with the bravado that came with being the Dark One for months and it honestly made her want to scream in frustration. But this Emma was well and truly the saviour that she loved, even if she knew that her past self would never admit it without some prompting from the blonde.

"Love is often mistook for hate," she replied with a fond chuckle.

 **[Emma]** inspected her and decided that she definitely liked this version of Regina, she was the right balance of sass and kindness, she was a hero but not sickeningly moral like her parents.

"And what made you realise that you didn't hate me?"

"Burning jealously," Regina smirked.

The blonde tilted her head and said, "and who was you jealous of?"

"What makes you so sure that it was me?" the brunette scoffed.

"Well you would have made a point of saying that it was me, so obviously it wasn't," she smirked.

Regina rolled her eyes, it was rather hard to believe that the saviour could have known her so well years before they even got married, "you and Captain Guyliner," she muttered.

 **[Emma]** furrowed her brow and the brunette explained, "Captain Hook."

"His real?" the other woman laughed uneasily.

"His quite real, and quite annoying."

"You sound bitter," she chuckled.

"You'll understand when you meet him. Speaking of which, you are taking all of this rather well."

"Does that surprise you?" **[Emma]** laughed as she looked down at the girl who was happily babbling near her abdomen.

"It took a lot for you to not have a melt down every time something happened, I would say that time travel would be throwing you in at the deep end."

"I don't think I've accepted it's happening, denial has always worked well for me," she shrugged.

Silence fell for a moment and Regina noticed that the blonde was in deep thought, "what's wrong?" she finally asked.

"What happened to me? I mean…everything seems pretty perfect in the future, so…"

Regina looked down at her lap and swallowed hard, "you sacrificed yourself to the darkness that was attacking me."

"So I turn into like…a full on saviour?"

The brunette rolled her eyes and replied, "surely someone who killed a dragon cannot possibly see themselves as a failed hero."

"It's just another example of denial," Emma chuckled, "besides, it doesn't look like I stay the saviour forever."

Regina shook her head and said, "something you should probably get used to in your family is everything eventually turning out exactly how you want it to."

"So you're like…an optimistic in the future?" **[Emma]** laughed.

Regina grimaced and replied, "I suppose you could see it that way, your parents are rather persistent."

"I've noticed."

Someone came running up the stairs and both women thanked anyone who was listening that Tamsin didn't instantly wake up.

The older version of Henry appeared at the door, for a moment, he forgot what he was going to say as he looked at Tamsin and **[Emma],** the scene was painfully familiar and served to remind him what

had been missing from their family for months.

Finally, he looked back to Regina and said, "we have another issue."

Regina brought her hand across her face and said, "what else could have possibly gone wrong?"

Henry bit his lip and said, "Neal is down the stairs." Emma's eyes widened, she had honestly not really taken in the whole explanation of who he was, so her mind immediately went to Neal Cassidy.

The brunette boy quickly held up his hand and clarified, "your six year old brother."

"Okay…so other than noting that we should never leave Ruby in charge of children again, what is the issue?" Regina prompted.

"Ma is here as well."

 **A/N Hope you guys enjoyed, I would love to hear what you thought XD**


	6. Chapter 6

**T/W for violence against a child**

Chapter six

An oppressive silence held the room captive, and the only sound was Henry coming down the stairs and taking a seat next to **[Regina]** without a second thought. The brunette woman blinked a few times as she considered the easiness of his movements. As strange as her future looked, she had to admit that it was a rather bright one, even if she ended up married to a certain idiotic blonde.

The younger version of **[Henry]** looked at the lanky brunette boy suspiciously, he was certainly having a hard time associating all of this future versions with those who he was surrounded with before they all appeared. Emma and Regina seemed to have switched roles and it was honestly messing with his mind, somehow the Evil Queen becoming the saviour just didn't sit right with him, almost as if he couldn't believe that it would ever happen.

The silence continued to reign until David said, "can we talk about it now?"

Snow ran her hand across her face, the disapproving looks of their past versions were certainly not helping, "I thought she would catch the arrow."

"Pretty sure she has to see it coming for that to happen," he shot back.

"I was trying to save Henry's life," Snow defended.

"By shooting your daughter?" **[Charming]** asked, his voice held a lot more anger than the man stood next to her, but he was probably still under some illusion that even as the Dark One, his child was good.

Snow pinched the bridge of her nose, she could handle an argument with her husband, but not with two of him.

"She is immortal," she said through gritted teeth, mostly because she was very aware that her child was fully capable of living centuries hating her.

"Immortal?" **[Henry]** asked.

His older version looked over at him, he was sure that he was probably thinking just how awesome that was, the brunette was beginning to wonder just how he could have been so insufferably annoying and yet have so many people jump to his defence at all times.

"Don't say 'awesome'" Henry said warningly.

"I wasn't going to," he squeaked, "I was going to say that this must be some trick from the Evil Queen."

Henry shot a look over his shoulder to **[Regina],** he was well aware that a comment like that probably wouldn't have hurt the future version of his mother, after all, she had basically gotten her happy ending before all of this Dark One stuff happened. But the younger version of the former queen had a clear look of pain cross her face at her son's words.

Henry stood from his stool and stalked over to his younger version with narrowed eyes, "you don't get to call mom that ever again," he growled.

"How can you call her 'mom'?" **[Henry]** asked, sounding utterly dumbfounded. Although he had not wanted her to be murdered by a mob, he was sure that his adoptive mother would probably no longer be a part of his life in the future, he found it difficult to believe that he was ever able to forgive her for what she did.

"Because she raised you…me…you know what I mean!" he growled.

"But she is the…"

Henry held up his hand and gave him a warning look, "she's the mayor of Storybrooke who _was_ the Evil Queen. And more importantly, she is the mother who adopted you when you could have easily ended up in foster care."

 **[Henry]** opened his mouth and closed it again, he couldn't deny that he'd had a rather wonderful childhood, right up until Snow had given him that storybook and he started believing in the curse.

The shorter boy fell back onto the couch and his older counterpart went to lean against the wall.

 **[Regina]** looked between the two versions of her son wearing a completely dumbstruck, she couldn't help but see the whole interaction as a sign that the future was bright. But then again, she imagined that it took some time before Henry was able to reach that state of forgiveness.

The silence was once again interrupted, this time by a knock at the door.

The normalcy of the occurrence made everyone look utterly confused, no one could imagine who would so casually knock.

Eventually, **[David]** stood from the couch and yanked the front door open, fully expecting some kind of brutal attack, but instead he received a hug attack to his knees.

"Daddy," the six-year-old mumbled against his knees.

The blonde's eyebrows shot up, the fact that he was going to have another child in the future hadn't quite registered, he had been too focused on the future of his daughter.

"Errr…"

"Neal," David called and the boy looked over with a furrowed brow, he looked between his two sets of parents.

 **[Snow]** stared at the child intently, he was clearly her child, almost a male copy of what she had imagined Emma to look like at that age. With the guilt over not having had the chance to see Emma as a child, she found it very hard to believe that she would ever have another child, even if she immediately felt maternal towards this Neal.

He finally let go of **[David's]** legs and walked over to the other version of his father who was motioning for him to come over.

"What's going on?" the boy asked in an adorably squeaky voice.

"It's hard to explain, but can you tell us how you got here?" Snow asked in as calm a voice as possible, she was seriously beginning to reconsider all of the times that she had asked Ruby to babysit.

"I was sitting at Granny's, and then this black swirly thingy appeared."

Charming and Snow exchanged a look and Snow asked, "a vortex?"

He nodded and they each groaned.

"What does that mean?" **[David]** asked, though it was obvious that he was still in an considerable amount of shock.

"It means that I wanted to see my dear little brother."

The younger blonde man jumped and turned to see the older version of his daughter leaning against the doorframe. Up close, he could see all of the differences, even if he had only known Emma for a relatively small amount of time, he was sure that she was good. But Dark Swan was just her opposite in every way, and the fact that he wouldn't be able to find it in himself to fight her scared him even more.

Emma rolled her eyes and walked straight passed him and looked at the other version of him who was wearing an unreadable expression as he held Neal closer to him.

"Why would you bring him here?" he asked as evenly as possible.

"I figured heroes always enjoy their tests, so I'm offering you another one," she replied and laughed at her father's look of confusion, "I'm so lucky that intelligence isn't genetic."

David managed to mask his hurt, and rolled his eyes at the look on his past self's face, clearly he couldn't deal with his daughter talking to him in a very Regina-like manner.

"What test are you talking about?" Snow asked apprehensively, she had a feeling that it was not a test she wanted to pass.

An arrow came flying out of the quiver that Snow had thrown on the counter, and after a small blast of energy, David was sent flying back and the tip hovered close to Neal's face.

Snow's eyes widened, and after quickly checking that her husband was still conscious, she looked pleadingly at Emma, "he's your brother."

"I'm trying to prove a point," the blonde sneered.

"What point?" Snow cried.

In explanation, Emma brought out a gun and threw to her father, only furthering everyone's confusion.

The blonde rolled her eyes and said, "it has a bullet forged from the same metal as my dagger," it was implausible, but she had a feeling that Snow and Charming would fall for it, especially considering their precious youngest was in danger.

As expected, she heard the rushing of footsteps coming down the stairs and she just knew that Henry had successfully gotten her past self, he was serving her plan even if he was trying to save his uncle.

"Emma," Regina said warningly, but the blonde didn't even turn to look at her wife as she froze her in place. She waved her hand and three more arrows zoomed towards Neal, purposely pointing at some vital organs.

"Choose," she commanded her father who had yet to even put his finger on the trigger.

"I…" David said weakly and looked between his children, the full grown woman asking him to choose and the innocent boy with a quivering chin.

"Daddy," Neal whimpered pathetically as an arrow scraped near his skin.

"Three," Emma began, punctuating the word as the tip sank a centimetre into her brother's skin, causing him to cry out.

David finally allowed a few tears to fall down his face and he readjusted his grip on the gun, lifting it slightly, though his muscles seemed to understand just how unnatural it would be and seized slightly.

"You wouldn't hurt your brother," he said pathetically.

"I thought that mom would never shoot me with an arrow, but life doesn't go the way we expect it to. There is not alternative here, you have to choose!...two…"

Neal cried out again, this time arrow pierced an inch into his stomach.

"One!"

The next thing David knew, he saw the arrow pointed at his son's heart twitch and it was as if someone else lifted the gun and shot point blank at the Dark One.

 **A/N So this turned out darker than expected, let me know what you thought XD**


	7. Chapter 7

**T/W for mild violence**

Chapter seven

The arrows clattering to the ground was accompanied by David violently throwing the gun to the floor with a disgusted expression consuming his face.

Snow ran forward and fell to her knees in front of Neal, who all but jumped into her arms, crying uncontrollably.

Safe in the knowledge that his son was okay, he focused his attention on his daughter, both versions of her.

The one who had forced him into the twisted test stood and with a quirked eyebrow and a bullet floating close to her face.

More than ever, he felt like a complete moron.

He should have known that no Dark One would ever give a person the tools they needed to take their life, and now that his son's life was no longer being threatened, he began to think that it was more than likely impossible to forge a bullet from the same metal as the dagger.

Maybe the worst part of this was her mask of indifference, almost as if she knew what her father would do, she had known that he wouldn't have chosen her.

He then looked behind her to see the younger blonde was having more issue keeping a neutral expression. In one day, she had discovered that the curse was real, met her parents and discovered a great deal about her future. Now she had seen her own father, who she more than likely already had little faith in, shot her point blank to protect the child that they didn't abandon.

Emma stared at the bullet for a moment as if it was the most interesting thing in the world and then allowed it to fall into the palm of her hand, "so charmingly predictable."

"Emma…" he said weakly.

"Is this where you tell me that I would thank you if I was 'normal'?" she glowered.

David allowed his eyes to drift to Neal who seemed to be calming down slightly and he nodded despite the tears still running down his face, "I know you would have in the past."

Emma looked over her shoulder and shook her head, and laughed, "she looks just as prepared to thank you as I am."

David swallowed hard and saw each person from the past was clearly judging him, but he was trying to tell himself that he had no choice, something he was sure he wouldn't be telling himself if the bullet had actually hit his little girl.

The oppressive silence that overtook the room was quickly interrupted by the bellowing of green smoke and Zelena appeared with a huge smirk on her face.

"Is that really the point you needed to prove?" she laughed, "its rather obvious that your parents love the son they saw grow up more than the broken woman who they just needed to break the curse, wouldn't you agree?"

Emma clenched her fists, and her father furrowed her brow at the reaction, maybe she wanted to be proven wrong.

"That is not true at all," he tried to say indignantly, but his daughter just ignored him and turned to her current 'master'.

"Why are you here?" the Dark One asked with narrowed eyes.

"Because I have given what you wanted and now it's my turn," she said as she walked over to the paralysed Regina and put the tip of the dagger near her face.

Emma let out a huff and walked straight over to the witch, pushing her arm down.

"You have all the subtlety of a giant," she grumbled.

Zelena smirked and walked away from Regina to lean against the back of the couch, if she wasn't quite so excited about the prospect of getting what she wanted, then she probably would have noticed just how protectively Emma was standing in front of her wife.

"We have a deal, Swan," she said cockily.

Emma looked over her shoulder at the paralysed brunette and clicked her finger to release her.

Regina let out a deep breath and looked around her. The woman's eyes quickly trained upon Zelena, who was smirking wildly at her little sister.

"Never do that again," she growled at Emma.

"You are such a hypocrite," Emma returned, clearly the woman wasn't aware of exactly what she had just done to her brother, she imagined that she would have a slightly more serious response to her sadism.

The former Evil Queen rolled her eyes at the Dark One and then furrowed her brow when she realised that there was a prominent wailing in the room that she had somehow missed a moment ago.

Looking over at Snow, she saw the distressed little boy clinging desperately to his mother and the distinct sight of blood staining his mother's blouse, and she had a feeling that it wasn't the princess's.

"You didn't," she breathed.

"Really? You're judging me, your majesty?"

"I never hurt my brother!" she shot back.

"You didn't save him either," Emma sneered.

Regina allowed a hurt expression to come over her face, she didn't even register the confusion on the face of her past self. After all, she didn't know that Neal was her half-brother until quite recently, and then the Wicked Witch, who also happened to be her half-sister decided to kill him out of jealousy.

"Yes, it's all very sad, but unsurprising that Evil Queen makes for a terrible sibling, now can we please get back to you fulfilling your part of our deal?" Zelena chuckled as she unhitched herself from the couch.

Emma turned away from her wife's hurt expression, it was just one more thing that she had to try and convince herself she was okay with. Just like she would have to spend the rest of her life thinking out the pathetic sounds that her little brother had made when she had hurt him, just to prove a point that a part of her knew she hadn't truly proven at all. There was still a part of her that knew that her parents loved her, it just wasn't stronger than the voice of darkness.

"What deal?" Emma asked with faux confusion.

Zelena's smile dropped and she inspected the Dark One for a moment to see if she was joking, and finally she replied, "you said that if I allowed your twisted little test, you would tell me the best way to hurt Regina."

The blonde tilted her head and smirked, "I didn't agree to that."

"Yes you did!" the red head said rather childishly, once again she seemed to be one step away from stamping her foot.

Emma smirked and walked closer to her, "prove it."

The woman's eyes widened and she realised she had missed one vital part of making a deal, "but…you didn't offer me a contract."

"Most people would have known to ask."

Before Zelena could make a reply, Emma felt the witch's grip on the dagger loosen ever so slightly and took the opportunity to shoot the bullet in her hand at the woman's forearm almost faster than any gun could have fired it.

The red head let out a roar of pain and the dagger went clattering to the ground.

Then it was almost as if everything went into slow motion as every person, particularly those from the future, subconsciously moved towards it.

The blonde was about to pick it up, but she wasn't fast enough as her double rushed over and snapped it up before she had even leaned down.

 **A/N Hope you guys enjoyed, I would love to hear what you thought XD**

 **Also let me know what you would like to see Emma do with the dagger :)**


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter eight

Silence fell over the room as **[Emma]** held up the dagger and her future version stood rigidly still, waiting for a command.

"Emma…" Regina began, but she didn't know what else to say, she honestly had no idea what would happen next.

The younger blonde swallowed hard and thought this through, this had been a spur of the moment thing, though there was one thing she wanted to know.

Looking around the room, she saw the audience that she would have if she were to ask now, and she made her decision as to what her first command should be.

"I…command you to take us somewhere private," she finally managed to say, and a split second later, they were each engulfed in black smoke and taken away from the Charming's apartment.

Regina closed her eyes in frustration and then looked over to Snow who was still holding Neal close to her.

Her eyes fell down to the arrows that lay at his feet and she tried to work through what her wife could have done to her brother-in-law, but she was somewhat glad that she had missed it.

The young boy seemed to have calmed down marginally and Regina sighed and walked over to him, Snow seemed to understand and lightly tapped her son to get his attention.

"Neal…" Snow whispered as she stroked his hair, "Regina can make it better."

The boy looked over his shoulder and unhitched himself from his mother to hug Regina.

"It's okay," she assured, "what hurts?"

He was about to tell her before **[Snow]** finally interrupted, "how can everything be so different?"

Snow looked over and her counterpart and rolled her eyes, she motioned for Regina to ignore her and continue her healing, which she promptly did.

"Things changed," she replied, "before…what happened, everything was perfect, so you really need to get over this hatred, because you cannot deny that Regina is different."

Everyone seemed to turn to **[Regina]** at the same time, she had been significantly silent throughout this whole ordeal. In that moment, she was closely watching as her future version finished her healing spell, she couldn't help but notice the light magic flowing from her hand. As soon as the older brunette was done, Neal who had been giggling at the feel of the woman's magic, lurched forward to hug her again.

"What?" she asked somewhat harshly, she had been quite content with the lack of attention she was receiving, it was strange enough to be in the Charming's apartment without being in some way attacked. Everything else was something she was still working on. Her relationship with Snow seemed to develop into something resembling a friendship, and as strange as the idea of being daughter-in-law to the younger woman was, she could hardly deny the results. Henry seemed to be closer than ever to her, she had to actually hold back some happy tears when he had defended her to his younger self. As for the other child that she would apparently have, she had felt an instant connection to Tamsin the moment she had laid eyes on her. Even the idea of having said child with the moronic sheriff didn't seem so abhorrent, not that she was prepared to admit anything past attraction for the blonde.

"She doesn't seem that different," **[Charming]** almost spat, and the mayor of the current time rolled her eyes.

Snow pinched the bridge of her nose and said, "that is because she has already completely changed from her days as the Evil Queen, now can we please focus on finding our daughter…both of them…"

"How did this happen?" **[Snow]** asked, "how could she have gone from the saviour to being…"

"A sadistic Dark One," Zelena suggested as she clutched her bleeding arm.

Regina rolled her eyes deeply and raised her hand, a moment later, the bullet flew out of her sister's arm and into her hand. The wound then began to close and the red head blinked a few times as she realised the whole process hadn't hurt one bit.

"You and your dear wife have truly swapped places," she laughed as she ran a finger over the healed skin.

"Shut up," the brunette growled and stood from the couch, and stalked towards her older sister, "this is all your fault."

"You can look at this as though I did you a favour, you are in quite the position to make sure that your dear older brother never dies," she laughed.

Regina was about to raise her hand, not quite yet having decided between a fireball or a slap, but someone interrupted.

"Brother?" **[Regina]** asked somewhat disbelievingly, clearly she had only just allowed the previously revealed information to penetrate her mind.

The red head turned to look at her and smirked, "Neal Cassidy."

 **[Henry]** looked between them and considered this information, finally, he squeaked, "my dad?"

"Such a clever son," Zelena said in mock congratulation, but then amended, "or should I say nephew?"

The younger version of the former Evil Queen sat there for a moment, clearly, she was torn between the thought of actually being related to Henry and the implications that having a brother meant for her family tree.

"My father cheated on my mother?" was the only thing that she could manage to get out.

"Oh no, the man whose heart you ripped out would never do something such as that, I wonder if he would have given up his life if he had known he wasn't your father," the red head tutted.

 **[Henry]** watched the pain cross his mother's face and for the first time, he considered that she regretted what she had done in the past.

"Shut up," Regina said through gritted teeth, but her younger self held up her hand.

"Who is my father then?"

"Rumpelstiltskin," Zelena glowered, "of all things, I must admit that I don't envy the thought of having the former Dark One as a father, probably a good thing he won't be alive much longer."

 **[Regina]** sat there stunned, as Zelena was about to add another taunt, but she promptly fell to the ground unconscious as the older brunette retracted her hand from her face.

Shaking her hand, Regina looked around at the shocked faces and rolled her eyes, "oh, calm down, I could have done much worse."

Snow nodded in agreement and looked down at the unconscious red-head, "you should have…"

"Snow!" Charming said incredulously.

The princess rolled her eyes and said, "she has done nothing but make our lives miserable, just because Cora thinks she deserves redemption…"

"Snow!" Charming and Regina shouted at the same time, causing the woman to clamp her mouth shut.

She quickly cleared her throat and mumbled, "sorry."

"Who's Cora?" **[Henry]** asked as he watched **[Regina]** rapidly paling.

Regina was about to reply when smoke bellowed revealing an exasperated former Queen of Hearts holding a two year old, who promptly shouted, "mommy" as soon as she set eyes on Regina.

"I will never understand why you allowed that wolf to babysit over me," she mumbled as she handed the child to Regina.

* * *

 **[Emma]** bit her lip hard and continued to stare at the Dark Swan from her position sat on a tree stump. The blonde then turned her attention down to the dagger itself and ran her finger across the name engraved upon its surface.

"I had no idea that I could find myself so boring," the paler of the two yawned from her position leant against a tree.

The younger blonde shot her a contemptuous look and narrowed her eyes, "and what would you rather be doing?"

Emma shrugged and pushed herself off the tree, "hurting Snow and Charming comes to mind."

The other woman just shook her head and looked down at the ground, offering no reply.

"So you don't deny that a part of you wants to get revenge for what they did to you, they sent me…us through a wardrobe as a baby. Face it, the only thing that they cared about was whether you would survive long enough to break the fucking curse. Do you really think that they care about what happened to you after?"

 **[Emma]** didn't even attempt to interrupt her older self and just let out a ragged breath as she finally finished her rant. She was only pointing out the insecurities that she obviously remembered herself having, but the strangest thing was that every word was setting off her superpower. It was pretty difficult to believe someone who would torture a child to prove a point, even though the sight of her father pulling the trigger had hurt more than she thought possible, she couldn't help but understand, even if she didn't want to.

Standing from the tree trunk, she held up the dagger, she said, "I command you to tell me what you really think of them."

A clear struggle passed over the Dark One's facial features, she wanted to lie to get what the darkness inside her wanted, but it wasn't the darkness that determined her true emotions.

Swallowing hard, she finally admitted something that had been at the back of her mind for months, "I love them…"

 **[Emma]** took a moment to process this, she hadn't thought it possible that she would ever find parents, let alone ones who she could learn to love.

"And do you think that they love you?"

Emma bit her lip and closed her eyes, instead of offering a verbal reply, she just nodded.

"So why do you wish to hurt them?"

The older blonde opened her eyes and looked straight at the dagger, for the first time in a while, there was a glint of green behind her gold irises, and the younger woman felt as if she had gotten her answer.

"You're not in charge of your actions are you?" she sighed.

"I…" she trailed off and fell onto the tree stump that her counterpart had been sitting upon a moment before, "I'm really trying…"

 **[Emma]** sighed deeply and shook her head, she had never considered what life would be like if she was being controlled by something, mostly because she was under the impression that magic was a work of fiction until earlier that day. But now she could clearly see the toll that it would eventually take upon her, without the audience, the Dark One seemed to allow her shoulders to slump. She looked tired, and more than anything, she looked lonelier than the younger blonde had felt since she had come to Storybrooke.

"Tell me what is forcing you to act like this," **[Emma]** said softly, not even noticing that she was no longer holding up the dagger.

It appeared if the Dark One also didn't notice that she was being controlled as she placed her head in her hands, "nothing…but it's like there's this voice trying to tell me everything in my life is shit and that I need to do these terrible things to make it better. I don't even notice sometimes that I've something bad until hours later…"

"And you can't fight against it?"

"You sound like Regina," the blonde sighed heavily and finally looked up at her younger self. Somehow it just felt wrong to keep up her dark façade around her younger self, it felt pointless to even try to lie to a woman who didn't believe that things could get any better. As much as she had thought that what she wanted was to get her younger self to run away from Storybrooke was what she wanted, she now knew that she could never be happy without her family, a family that she wouldn't be able to find in Boston or anywhere else.

The older Swan looked up to see the other woman was still looking up at her expectantly and finally answered her question, "I tried, but I always end up screwing it up…"

"But…you have a family, like a real family," **[Emma]** insisted, sounding somewhat excited, though she clearly had yet to associate the future with her own life. "Henry, Tamsin…"

"Emily," Emma sighed and smiled slightly at the confused look on the other woman's face. Standing from the tree stump, she said, "you will have two daughters, but none of that changes the fact that there is nothing I can do. I have tried everything, but I always seem to screw it up somehow…"

"You don't want this? Surely as the…"

"Saviour?"

The younger blonde rolled her eyes with a small cringe and nodded, "you can beat this and be with your family."

"It's not that easy!" Emma finally shouted, "I have tried to be normal, but I'm just not…I have tried to ignore the voice in my head and then I realise later that I did exactly what it wanted me to do. Do you honestly believe that I wanted to hurt my little brother? Do you think that I want my daughters to be afraid of me?"

 **[Emma]** swallowed hard and shook her head, finally noticing that the older woman was stalking towards her, her arm shot up to hold the dagger in front of her.

"If someone really wants to do something then they will," she retorted. "if the Mr. Williams wanted to adopt me then he would have instead of just saying he would consider it and then sending me away when his wife got pregnant. If I wanted to leave Storybrooke, then I would have done it a long time ago and if you wanted to kill Mary Margaret and David, then you would have done it already! Stop hiding behind your excuses and do something to help your family, because I don't want to give up on a future that looks pretty damn good!"

The Dark Swan took a deep breath, the words finally seeming to have gotten through to her. As well as Regina knew her, it was hardly disputable that the past version of her knew her even better, she knew exactly what to say when everyone else had been trying to feed her some hope speeches that were not making anything better.

"I don't suppose that you have any suggestions?" Emma finally replied when she had finished working through the other woman's words.

"I don't know anything about this magical crap…"

"Not yet," the older blonde returned with a smirk and the other Emma rolled her eyes and fell onto the tree stump with a huff.

 **A/N I need to thank Quindecim for helping out on this since the awesome QueenApples was unavailable XD**

 **I would love to hear what you thought :)**


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter nine

The room was completely silent as the little brunette burrowed into her mother.

Regina lightly stroked her youngest daughter's hair and the looked at Cora, "is there anyone left in the present?" she sighed.

Cora smirked and said, "Emily wanted to follow her sister and the wolf was scared to death of what you would do to her once you got back."

The younger brunette woman rolled her eyes and mumbled something about revoking babysitting rights before she pulled Emily away from her body and sat her on the back of the couch.

She finally looked around the room to gauge the reaction, **[Charming]** just looked thoroughly confused and she had to remind herself that he had yet to see her mother in person.

She then looked at **[Snow]** and resisted the urge to roll her eyes again when she saw that the woman was staring at Emily instead of what everyone else was concerned with. The woman was clearly first noticing the resemblance to Tamsin and then realising exactly what that meant.

Just about stopping herself from let out a huff of frustration at the woman who would become her mother-in-law, she looked over at her other self.

 **[Regina]** had paled significantly, it had yet to register that she had another daughter, mostly because she was looking at the woman she had believed to be dead. Of all the things she had regretted doing in the Enchanted Forest, sending the pirate after her mother was not one of them.

 **[Henry]** furrowed his brow at the reaction, he had no idea that anything could frighten his mother and her future self certainly seemed perfectly comfortable around her.

"Who are you?" he asked making to walk forward, but **[Regina]** quickly leaned forward to pull him back by his sweater.

Cora watched the motion and a look of regret passed over her face as she instantly recognised the fear on the younger version of her daughter's face.

The older woman was about to explain, but the confused **[Henry]** and **[Charming]** got their answer when someone said, "grandma?" from the bottom of the stairs.

Cora turned to see a very ill looking Tamsin clutching a teddy bear that she was sure her daughter must have created since she had never seen before.

Regina sighed walked over to the girl, promptly picking her up, "you're supposed to be asleep, Tamsin," she said as she placed her hand on her forehead, instantly feeling that her fever had increased.

Regina walked back over to her other daughter and leaned against the sofa as Tamsin explained, her voice hoarse from the sore throat, "I woke up and you and mommy was gone…"

Cora reached over and pushed her granddaughter's hair out of her sweaty face and then looked down finally noticing the unconscious red-head.

"Regina!" she said indignantly falling to her knees next to her eldest daughter.

"What?" the brunette returned rather childishly, "she deserved it."

"I'm sure she did, but you still could have been the bigger person," Cora sighed, finally seeming to decide that Zelena would lie, she stood back up and fixed her daughter with a scolding look.

At the sight, **[Regina]** finally seemed to have reached her limit.

"What the hell?!"

Regina considered how to explain that the woman was actually a decent mother with her heart, but it had taken her months to be willing to sustain a conversation with the redeemed woman, let alone to allow her near her children. She couldn't think of a way to convince her broken past self that she should trust the woman who was the root of all of her issues and she just looked to her mother for help.

"It's a long story…" Cora offered with a slight cringe.

 **[Regina]** narrowed her eyes and shook her head, "you expect me to believe that I marry the saviour, have two more children, find out that Rumpelstiltskin is my father and somehow my mother becomes a functioning human being?"

"Well…that's exactly what happens…" Snow said after a moment and the brunette seemed prepared to ignite a fireball, before remembering that she had no magic, she just clenched her fist.

Regina shot the woman a warning look and she just turned back to Neal who was sat on her lap and continued to wipe his tear stained face.

Handing Tamsin to her mother, she held up her hands in surrender to the panicking woman and said, "it's understandably a lot to take in…"

She was about to assure her that everything would be perfect, but she was interrupted by more bellowing smoke.

Regina's eyes instantly widened when she saw the man who had been in a coma for a months, his eyes lingered on her for a moment, before he finally fixed his stare on the woman he was truly pissed at.

"Rumple…" Cora said rather weakly, she had seen that expression the last time he had found out a certain piece of information and she had a feeling that he wasn't quite as well adjusted this time round.

"You bitch!" he shouted.

* * *

-Twenty minutes earlier-

Emma followed her younger self down Main Street in silence as she had been commanded and she finally rolled her eyes, tapping the other woman on the shoulder.

 **[Emma]** looked and sighed, "fine, you can talk, what?"

"Where are we going?"

The blonde bit her lip, she knew that she was woefully undereducated, but she thought that her theory was somewhat sound, "to see Mr Gold."

Emma raised her eyebrow and said almost to herself, "that should be interesting, wonder if the dagger will get confused."

The younger sheriff tilted her head, she could have sworn that she saw another glimpse of someone much more human that she had seen in the apartment.

"You know that you could have just asked to be poofed to his shop?"

 **[Emma]** grimaced and shook her head, "I would rather not throw up on his stock."

"Trust me, you'll get used to poofing around town, it's the ultimate dramatic entrance," the older blonde chuckled and continued to follow the other woman towards the pawn store.

The bell over the door announced their arrival and Gold looked over with a raised eyebrow until his mouth dropped open slightly.

As the pair walked further into the store, he blinked out of his shock and said, "interesting."

 **[Emma]** nodded her agreement and said, "we need your help…"

Gold just inclined his head slightly and replied, "I believe I require some more information."

Five minutes later, the younger blonde had filled the man in as much as possible, having commanded her unhelpful double to silence twenty seconds into the explanation.

He took a second to think this through as the saviour looked at him expectantly and he said, "I suppose it's not completely unbelievable, but how do you suppose that I can help?"

"I figured you would have a way to get rid of the darkness…"

"Even if I had the answer that you wanted, why do you suppose that I would ever do something that would benefit Regina?" he asked rather bitterly and for the first time, the older of the two Emma's noticed the medallion in his hand.

Making a small wave at her counterpart, she felt the command to silence being lifted once again and she said, "I have a perfectly good reason why you would do anything to help her, you owe her."

Gold was about to raise his hand to attack, but his eyes fell upon the dagger in the other Emma's hand and he reminded himself that this was another Dark One he was talking to. He knew he had no point of reference for this, but he had a feeling that any fight between the two of them would be long and pointless.

"Why would I ever owe the woman who locked away the woman I love for twenty eight years?"

"Because it's your fault that she ended up the way she did," Emma retorted.

"I was trying to get to my son," he replied adamantly and his fellow Dark One resisted the urge to roll her eyes, she knew exactly where his conviction was coming from and it certainly wasn't from any rational thought.

"Well I personally wouldn't turn my daughter into the Evil Queen to get to my son, but to each their own I guess," she said casually.

Gold's expression became completely blank and the medallion fell to the counter, he thought this through for a moment and instantly remembered a moment of weakness with Cora just before she got married. The timeline fit perfectly, after that he began to have flashes of all of the 'magic lessons' he had ever inflicted upon Regina and he shook his head,

"Henry is her father," he said through gritted teeth.

"Denial will get you nowhere, Gold," the blonde chuckled, "you know that I'm telling the truth."

The man considered this with his hand tightly gripping the counter and he finally disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

 **[Emma]** sighed and said, "do you enjoy making things more difficult?"

The other blonde shrugged her shoulders and said, "it's more enjoyable than constantly saving people."

 **A/N Hope you guys enjoyed, please let me know what you thought XD**


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter ten

-Camelot-

"Arthur…please come and join in on the festivities, you can stare at that infernal compass another day," Gwenifer almost begged as she walked into their chambers.

Arthur spared a moment to listen to the sounds of the festival going on outside of the castle and he shook his head, looking back down at the compass, "Merlin said that the dagger would reveal itself on my birthday."

"But he didn't say which birthday, you can't do this every year, the people wish to see their king. The needle on that compass hasn't moved since you found it," she sighed, walking up behind him to place her hands on his shoulders.

Arthur closed his eyes in frustration and turned to look up at his wife, "without that infernal dagger, Excalibur will never be whole. How do you expect a king to rule with half a sword?"

"It has worked well so far and what if…" she trailed off and looked at the floor, they had spoken at length about what would happen if he ever found the dagger and she didn't like the sound of it one bit.

Standing from his chair, he placed both of his hands on her waist and smiled reassuringly, "it will work, I won't harbour that despicable darkness for long."

"What makes you think that you would be able to control it, so many have tried and failed."

The brunette brought a hand up and wiped his hand across her cheek, "I was chosen by Merlin," he whispered.

Gwenifer rolled her eyes and brought herself out of his embrace, "that bloody tree has ruined our lives, Arthur, you have your kingdom, these people follow you without question. No one need ever know that the sword is not whole."

"But I will know!" he shouted, "I will always have it in the back of my mind. No matter how prosperous Camelot is, it will always be the broken kingdom while its king wields a broken sword!"

Her shoulders slumped slightly, they had been having this fight so often over the years that she was beginning to suspect that there was no point even trying to win it.

Walking back over to her husband, she whispered, "Camelot is no longer the broken kingdom, you have seen to that. Merlin was clearly wrong, you do not need to complete the blade to rule this people and you would only be a better king with you would give up this obsession."

Arthur was about to reply until he saw his wife's eyes widened as she peered over his shoulder.

Spinning around, his eyes fell upon the compass, where the needle was finally spinning for the first time since he had found the item.

With shaking hands, he picked up the compass and exchanged a look with Gwenifer.

"What does that mean?" she whispered.

Arthur swallowed hard and thought back to some of the conversations he'd had with Merlin and took the advice of allowing magic to flow through him.

As soon as he closed his eyes, he got a flash of a strange looking town, and his eyebrows shot up as he saw two daggers.

Rumpelstiltskin and Emma Swan, somehow he just knew that the one he needed was the second one and as he opened his eyes, a huge smile spread across his face and he looked to Gwenifer.

"We need to find a way to Storybrooke."

* * *

-Storybrooke-just before Tamsin was born-

 _"Look babe," Emma said childishly._

 _Regina turned from her pacing around their bedroom and saw her wife was balancing a plate of salad on her stomach swollen from eight and a half months of pregnancy._

 _"You're supposed to be eating that," she seethed, any other time, she would have laughed at her wife's antics. But that day she had just found out something that completely dampened any hope of even cracking a smile._

 _Emma pouted and placed the plate next to her, "when you came storming up here, I assumed that you wanted to talk…"_

 _"You're supposed to be on bed rest, I shouldn't be stressing you out with my issues," she sighed and then continued her pacing._

 _The pregnant blonde smirked and shifted slightly, she knew that it would be too much effort to try and stand, that ordeal was usually saved for when she had to use the bathroom. It was for this reason that she waved her hand and Regina instantly felt compelled to sit on the end of the bed._

 _She blinked a few times and then looked over at her wife, "did you just use magic on me?"_

 _"You were stressing me out by not telling me your 'issues', I needed to get your attention."_

 _Regina ran a hand across her face and then finally relented at the other woman's look._

 _She stood and walked around to her side of the bed, moving the salad that she guessed the blonde had given up on, she allowed the taller woman to bring her arm around her._

 _"Is this about Cora or Gold?" Emma whispered softly when it became clear that the brunette was not planning to be forthcoming._

 _"I can be stressed about other things, Emma," she sighed._

 _The saviour raised her eyebrow and shook her head, "you can't lie to me Regina."_

 _The mayor slumped her shoulders and allowed her head to fall onto the other woman's shoulder, Emma promptly leaned down and placed a kiss on her forehead, waiting patiently for an answer._

 _"Gold asked me to visit him at his store," she mumbled against her wife's shoulder._

 _The blonde brought her hand up and began rubbing circles on the small of her back, "you haven't talked to him yet? It's been a week since you found out," she said softly._

 _"I've been rather focused on my mother and pregnant wife," Regina replied._

 _"You can stop worrying about me, Regina, I got this," Emma chuckled, "do you really want little Tamsin to grow up with her mommy having parent issues?"_

 _Regina was about to open her mouth to detest her words, before she furrowed her brow and said, "mommy?"_

 _Emma shrugged and brought her wife closer, "it would be cute, anyway, stop deflecting."_

 _The brunette bit her lip and sighed against the taller woman's neck, "how can he expect to be my father? I had a father and I ruined that royally."_

 _"Henry Sr. will always be the man who raised you and the man that you think of as your father. Going to talk to Gold isn't some kind of agreement to start calling him dad, you don't ever even have to acknowledge his existence again, but trust me, you will regret it if you don't at least take the chance. I never told anyone this, but after me and mom got back from the Enchanted Forest, I thought about running away. Obviously, Henry was what changed my mind, plus there was the whole thing of being in denial about loving you," she sighed, "but the other thing that stopped me was what Snow did while we were in that horrible place. She shot an ogre in the eye for me, she nearly killed Mulan for trying to cut down a bean stalk…"_

 _Regina gave her a confused expression and the blonde waved her hand, "I should probably tell you the whole story some time, but the point is that, you should give Gold a chance…"_

 _"He turned me into the Evil Queen so that I would cast the curse," Regina mumbled._

 _Emma sighed and brought her hand up to lightly stroke the other woman's hair, "maybe just the one chance then."_

 _The brunette laughed and nodded, leaning up to capture Emma's lips in her own, "I knew you would know exactly what to say."_

* * *

 _Regina's hand hovered over the door handle and finally she took a deep breath and grabbed it and threw it open. Regally as possible, she entered the Pawn Store, walking straight up to the counter._

 _Rumple looked up at the sound of the bell and instantly looked back down at the ledger in shame._

 _"Your maj…Regina…" he sighed._

 _The brunette took a moment to take in the appearance of the Dark One, desperately trying to acquiesce the most recent revelation with him, but it just wasn't happening._

 _"I trust that your mother is…okay…" he mumbled, still refusing to make eye contact._

 _Regina bit her lip and replied, "I believe it will take her time to adjust to her returned heart, but she should be fine."_

 _Gold nodded and then after a pregnant silence, he finally looked up to the woman and asked, "and you?"_

 _Regina looked at him for a moment and replied, "I'm…not sure…Emma suggested that I should at the very least attempt to speak with you…"_

 _"I never thought I would see the day when you would take advice from the saviour," he chuckled lightly, looking back down at the ledger, clearly pretending to write something important._

 _The former Evil Queen nodded her agreement and said with a slight smirk, "my wife can be surprisingly helpful…plus, she is the only person could possibly understand regaining parents."_

 _Gold winced as she finally voiced the reason why she had come to see him._

 _He was usually much more confident when faced with the mayor, he always knew exactly what to say to annoy and frustrate her, but he no longer wanted to._

 _Just before having her heart returned, Cora had taken great pleasure in revealing a secret she had successfully kept for six decades._

 _When he had first heard that Regina Mills was his daughter, he had of course denied it profusely. How could he have done all of those horrendous things to his own child? He had put her through hell so that he could get back to his son, and if what Cora said was true, he felt like more of a monster than ever before._

 _After a few hours, however, he found that he was no longer able to deny their relation, it just somehow made sense to him. Plus, the DNA test he had conducted without Regina knowing did help._

 _"I suppose you're right…" he replied awkwardly, quickly back into silence._

 _Regina looked at the floor for a moment, before she realised that she had no reason to feel any negative emotion. It wasn't her fault that Cora had lied and it certainly wasn't her fault if she decided that he would make a pretty crappy parent. However, she knew from personal experience the importance of giving a person the chance to atone, by all rights, Henry could still have been refusing to have anything to do with her._

 _It was for this reason that she took a deep breath and looked into the eyes of her biological father and said, "why did you ask me here?"_

 _Rumple bit his lip and took a deep breath, "I wanted to…I don't know what I wanted to do…I just didn't want it to seem that I was ignoring you…"_

 _"You actually wish to take on the role of my father?" Regina laughed bitterly._

 _"No…yes, I don't know," he sighed deeply._

 _They stood in silence for a few moments before the younger of the two said, "you will never take the place of my father, but perhaps I could give you the chance to attempt to live up to his standard."_

 _Gold's eyes widened as he considered this. He knew that Henry Sr. had done little to protect Regina against Cora's physical assaults, but he had always been there for her emotionally. He was the only person she was capable of loving in the Enchanted Forest after Daniel's death, the only person willing to give up his life for even the slightest chance of Regina's happiness. He may not have been able to save her first love, but he was the reason that she was with her True Love, about to have her second child._

 _In the back of his mind he noted that he also had a role in bringing her to the realm where she would eventually get her happy ending, but he couldn't dismiss the feeling that his contribution didn't count, especially considering the means he employed to get to this end._

 _"That could take some time," he sighed._

 _"You waited centuries to see Baelfire, you can certainly give me the time I need to accept our relation," Regina shot back, rather harshly. Clearly, it didn't sit well with her that she had a brother and it didn't help that the same brother was the father of her adoptive son and the first love of her wife. She didn't hate Neal, but she didn't have much intention to form any kind of sibling bonds with the former Lost Boy._

 _Rumple nodded and looked back down at the ledger, before he finally looked up and asked the question on his mind, "tell your wife that I said 'thank you'."_

 _"You can tell her yourself," Regina smirked, "you're going to have to talk to your granddaughter's other mother at some point."_

 _"Granddaughter?" Rumple said slowly, in all of the confusion of the past week, he had obviously failed to acknowledge the implications of things he already knew._

 _"You do understand basic genetics, don't you?" Regina said slowly, almost mockingly._

 _Rumple tilted his head with narrowed eyes, an almost proud smirk playing across his lips, "I suppose I just haven't yet considered it."_

 _"Tamsin will be born in a couple weeks, so you don't have long to 'consider it'."_

 _Gold's eyes widened and he asked in complete awe, "you're going to allow me to see her?"_

 _The brunette inspected him for a moment, obviously trying to decide whether she was truly okay with his._

 _But with Emma's words in her mind, she replied, "I suppose you and mother can both see yourselves on a probation of sorts, one wrong move and I will never allowed you near me or my family ever again."_

 _Rumple swallowed hard, telling himself he could do this for his daughter, he said, "understood."_

 ** _A/N Sorry for the lack of the present day Storybrooke, this chapter was supposed to be much longer, but I won't be able to write for about a week (I may update something tomorrow not entirely sure) so I just wanted to make sure you guys got something before my week of constant uni work began lol_**

 ** _Anyway, please let me know what you thought and I'll see you guys once my assignments are done *sigh* XD_**


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter eleven

-In Camelot-

"Are you sure that you don't want me to come with you, Arthur?" Gwenifer almost begged her husband.

The king looked up from the compass he had been studying and smiled at the woman, "I need to ensure that Camelot is left in the best hands possible, my love. I will be back before you know it."

"But…" she trailed off, looking at the ground.

"Do you truly believe that I won't be returning?" Arthur asked softly, standing from his chair so that he could cup her cheek in his hand.

"I have heard many tales of this Dark One, Arthur," she sighed, "there are many accounts of his cruelty, do you truly believe that you will be any match for that kind of power?"

"The dagger controls all of that power, Gwen," he sighed, "with it, I will be able to reforge Excalibur and Camelot will become the great kingdom it was always destined to be."

"But what of the other realms? If you free this Dark One then no one will be able to control them. You will be releasing untold power into the universe, who knows what could happen?"

"I will not allow that to happen," Arthur said as he brought his hands to rest on her waist, "don't you believe in me?"

"I believe in you, Arthur, it's this mysterious Dark One who I don't trust," she sniffled while burying her face into his shoulder.

"It will all work out for the best, my queen," he assured, bringing her closer.

Of course, he had failed to mention his real plan, knowing that she would reject it instantly. Plus, he had already used all of that dust on her once, he knew that it wouldn't take much for her to realise that he wasn't really the man she loved anymore.

It was for that reason that he had no intention of telling her that he planned to harness the power of the Dark One for himself. If he was to take in that dark power, then he could take steps to free himself from the dagger and then reunite it with its other half. He would not only have made Camelot no longer the 'broken kingdom', but he would have also have given them a king for his entire immortal life.

"Hurry back," she urged as she pulled away from him.

"For you, anything," the brunette smiled, leaning forward to steal a short peck.

With that, he walked back over to the compass and held it up, it's needle instantly began spinning around uncontrollably.

His fist closed around the magic bean that he had ordered his guards to bring to him from Merlin's old inventory, and he allowed a smile to tug at his lips while he thought about the fact that everything he had wanted for years was now within his reach.

Dropping the bean into the small bowl of water he'd had prepared, his grin turned into a full blown smile when he saw the swirling vortex.

Clutching the compass more tightly he closed his eyes and imagined the images he had seen before, the two daggers serving as a more powerful destination marker than he could have ever gotten before.

Not even bothering to look back up to his wife, he jumped into the portal.

However, if he had bothered to glance up her the moment before he crossed the realms, he would have seen her blinking confusedly.

The second he had left Camelot, his spell on the woman had broken and she knew that she no longer wished for the king to return.

* * *

"Why would you do that?" **[Emma]** asked with an exasperated sigh, "I really wanted to ask him a question."

"You wanted to know whether there was some way to free me of the darkness so that you could get your little happy ending. But do you really think that Regina will be taking me back even if you somehow find a way to do something that no one else has been able to do for centuries?"

"I do actually," the younger blonde shot back with crossed arms.

"Okay then, what about mom and dad? I just attacked their precious little prince," Dark Swan replied, bitterness dripping through her voice, but the saviour detected something else in her tone.

"You already said that you regretted doing that," she asked, trying to ignore that she had called them mom and dad, that was certainly something she would not be prepared to do for a very long time.

The paler of the two just narrowed her eyes but eventually shot her gaze down to the ground when she realised that there was no way she could lie to herself.

"I didn't enjoy it as much as I made it seem," she mumbled.

"Then why did you do it?" **[Emma]** asked as she stared intently at the other woman, hoping for any sign of remorse and she could practically see it in every tensed muscle.

"Because…he made me…" she admitted.

"And 'he' is?" the younger blonde asked with a furrowed brow.

"Rumpelstiltskin, I've had his voice in my mind for months telling me that I should do a certain thing…"

"So you told him that Regina is his daughter to get back at him? You do know that it wasn't him specifically who made you do anything bad?"

"Stop psychoanalysing me," Emma scoffed.

 **[Emma]** sighed deeply and was about to command her older self to take her back to her apartment, she saw no point in continuing a conversation who wasn't completely in control of what they said. It seemed like one moment, she was ready to help in any way she could and then the next, she was actively trying to make everything as difficult as possible. But when she raised the dagger to utter her command, she was cut short by the door to the pawn store banging open.

Turning with wide eyes, she inspected the unfamiliar man clad in armour with a sheathed sword at his side, she blinked a couple of times before she looked over at the Dark One.

Emma just shrugged and answered the unasked question, "I have no idea who he is."

He narrowed his eyes at her and stalked towards her, "I am King Arthur of Camelot and I'm here to claim what is rightfully mine."

On his final word, he drew his sword and each version of Emma raised their eyebrows when they noticed the broken end.

"I have committed my life to finding the dagger of the Dark One so that I could reunite Excalibur and make my kingdom whole again."

"King Arthur," **[Emma]** said slowly and her older self just rolled her eyes.

"And how do you plan to do that?" the Dark One asked condescendingly.

Walking straight over to the saviour, he noticed just how shocked she looked and just took the dagger out of her hand.

"Oh my God, I'm starting to see why Regina calls me an idiot," Emma sighed.

The younger blonde blinked a couple times and realised what had happened, she couldn't help but start to understand as well.

Holding the sword and dagger together, he smiled manically, "if I were to take on the curse, I could reunite the blade and be the most powerful Dark One to ever live, without this dagger, no man could control me."

"So…basically your bat shit insane?" Emma asked.

Arthur narrowed his eyes at the blonde woman and held up the dagger, "you're awfully confident for a woman who is about to die."

The Dark One found herself rooted in her place, completely incapable of casting a simple spell that would protect her.

She figured she was out of options, and decided that a last ditch effort couldn't hurt, "there's one flaw in your plan, your majesty."

The man raised his eyebrow and looked at her expectantly, as did **[Emma].**

"She's the saviour," she said.

Arthur turned to look at the other woman, she looked more than terrified and he couldn't stop the laugh that escaped his lips.

"What could she possibly do to stop me?"

Emma looked at the other blonde, for the first time in a while, she began to hope in the strength of light magic.

The saviour starting shaking her head, she was pretty sure that there was nothing she could do, she was also quite sure that there was no way that she actually possessed any magic, despite all of the evidence to the contrary.

Arthur continued laughing and began stalking toward the older Swan, he brought the dagger up to her chest and smirked as fear passed the woman's face.

"If I die, you'll never get the future that you want, your children will lose their mother if you don't do something!" Emma roared, knowing that emotion was the only thing that could possibly make her past self-capable of even the simplest magical feat.

Arthur just smirked more when he saw that the other blonde seemed to be completely frozen in place.

Before he could move his arm forward, however, he found himself being engulfed in white smoke.

* * *

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Rumple roared.

Cora's mouth fell open slightly and she subconsciously moved to be in front of Regina, Tamsin and Emily.

"Rumple…" she breathed as she took in the man she had last seen in a coma, she considered that this probably wouldn't be the best time to mention that he would be her husband in the future.

"How can you possibly justify this, Cora?" he shouted, "you allowed me to remain in ignorance for years…"

On his final word, he lighted a fire ball and almost every past person in the room jumped in fear.

"How would things have been different?" Cora asked as she inched slightly again in front of her daughter and granddaughters.

"I wouldn't have trained my own fucking daughter to become the Evil Queen!"

"Yes you would have and you know you would have," Cora retorted, "you would have done anything to get back to Bae."

Rumple opened his mouth to retort, but instead, he just closed it and the fireball extinguished itself as he realised that he probably was the type of man who would have done the same thing even if he knew her to be his daughter. In the depths of his darkness, he probably would have convinced himself that he had to right to turn his daughter into anything he wanted, no matter how much it hurt her.

Turning back to look at **[Regina]** he swallowed hard when he noticed the way that she was protectively standing in front of **[Henry]** and he suddenly felt completely ashamed of himself. He was acting no different to the manner that had lost him Baelfire, even if the Evil Queen was no longer capable of the kind of innocent response that his son always had to his actions, he was still aware that anger wouldn't be helping anyone in this situation.

Silence fell over the room and Cora finally stepped aside, which allowed Rumple the sight of Regina holding Tamsin, with Emily tightly clutching her other hand from her position on the back of the couch.

He blinked a couple of times as he considered the implications of two Reginas and then he thought back to the story that the saviour had told him. He had thought that the most unbelievable part of it was the idea of the blonde being married to Regina, but when he looked on the two who were supposedly his grandchildren, he found that he could not deny that they would in fact be together one day.

Now, however, the thing that he was having trouble identifying as reality was the fact that Regina's expression held no contempt when she looked upon him. He had grown used to a look of pure hatred, he had always known that he deserved it, but when he looked between the two versions of his supposed daughter, he couldn't help but feel that the future was brighter.

"You don't hate me?" he asked in shock.

Regina's eyebrows shot up at the question, before she remembered the days before she had accepted the man, it made complete sense that he wouldn't quite believe her trust in him. Which was only confirmed when she spared a glance over to her younger self.

"Not anymore…" she admitted.

The Dark One actually smiled at this and an awkward silence fell over the room, until Tamsin asked, "where did mommy go?"

"She went crazy," Neal squeaked across the room.

"Neal!" Snow scolded, "you know that was not who your sister really is."

"She hasn't been Emma in a while, mom," he replied.

"I know," the brunette sighed.

"Where is she?" Tamsin repeated, ignoring her uncle.

As if to answer her question, white smoke bellowed, revealing two blondes, with an unfamiliar brunette man holding the dagger to the younger Dark One's heart.

Arthur quickly looked around the room, and took a moment to take in the double of almost each person, before he remembered what he was about to do.

Before anyone else could regret, he surged forward and buried the dagger into the blonde's chest.

 **A/N Sorry for the wait, I have no excuses but I should be able to do the next chapter a lot sooner hopefully XD**

 **Let me know what you thought :)**


	12. Chapter 12

**T/W for character death**

Chapter twelve

Silence fell over the room and nobody moved as the Dark One fell to the ground clutching her chest and letting out deep heaving breaths.

Arthur pulled the dagger away from her and a stream of dark energy followed the tip and began to coil itself around the weapon, making its way up the king's arm.

The brunette man stumbled backwards, leaving room for Regina to rush over to the fallen blonde, she didn't even take a second to think as she fell to her knees and cradled her wife's head in her hands.

"Emma," she whispered, desperately trying to register what had just happened. She looked around at all of the shocked faces and thanked anyone who was listening that her mother had the sense to obscure Tamsin and Emily's view.

She was about to look back at the blonde before her attention was caught by [Regina] who had stepped away from the counter and very close to the couch, her eyes flicking between the two versions of Emma. She noticed something that she knew the woman would not be admitting for a while, she cared about what happened to the saviour. No matter how much she detested the idea of being married to the woman in the future, the idea of their marriage ending so abruptly seemed to greatly concern the former Evil Queen.

With a shaking hand, she wiped away the blood starting drip from her love's mouth and she whispered, "you cannot die, Emma."

"I agree," the blonde laughed, but soon turned into a coughing fit as she desperately tried to catch whatever breath she had left.

Finally, the dark energy seemed to have completely left the woman's body, and in a quick flash of white, her clothes and hair returned to normal. Regina would have smiled at the sight of the red jacket if the white tank top underneath it wasn't soaked with blood. She also noticed just how pale the woman remained, something she knew shouldn't have remained if she wasn't moments away from death.

Looking up in contempt, but still holding the woman she loved impossibly close, her eyes fell onto the smirking unfamiliar man.

Arthur was inspecting his arms, though they looked no way different, he could feel a new kind of power surging through his veins. He instantly knew that he had made the correct decision, not that he knew that he was really no longer in control of his own thoughts.

"I did it," he announced in glee, one moment away from bouncing on the balls of his feet like a child.

Regina looked back down to her wife, whose head was lolling and she shook her head, "Emma, open your eyes now," she said warningly.

The blonde cracked her eyes open minutely, smiling at the fuzzy image of her wife that her heavy eyes could make out. She wanted to reach up and touch her face one more time, but her limbs all felt like lead, no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't move them.

"I'm…I'm sorry…"

"No, Emma," Regina sobbed, completely ignoring the gawping looks of [Snow] and [Charming]. The two of them had never seen the brunette woman show so much emotion in her life, especially not ones so genuine. Then there was the fact that they were literally watching how their child was going to die, overall it was just a hell of a lot to stomach and if their vacant expressions were anything to go by, they had no idea how to react to it.

Regina's hand moved to the blonde's neck and she felt intently for a pulse, any kind of flutter that would have told her she wasn't about to lose yet another one of her True Loves. She had certainly been lucky to find someone after Daniel, but she highly doubted that anyone had ever been allowed three chances at such happiness in their lives. She knew that if Emma died, then she would never be able to be truly happy again, no matter how much she searched and hoped, her perfect partner will have been gone.

However, no matter how much she shifted her fingers, she felt nothing and silent tears began to fall down her cheeks the more frantically she searched.

"Mom," Henry said from across the room, his voice heavy with emotion that he didn't know how to express. He knew that without Emma there would always be a piece of their family missing and he was pretty certain that Tamsin and Emily would be carrying this trauma with them for the rest of their lives, no matter how much Cora tried to shield them from it. The former Queen of Hearts was looking sadly at her distraught daughter, the situation made so much worse for her by the fact that she had been solely responsible the last time this had happened to her daughter.

Regina brought her hand up to lay on Emma's cheek for a second before she looked back up at the man who was marveling in his new power still with no regard to the fact he was surrounded in a room with people who now wanted him dead.

The older version of the former Evil Queen swallowed hard and lightly placed Emma's head onto the floor, before she stood and stared straight at him.

Arthur finally seemed to become aware that he wasn't alone and he smiled at the woman, "what are you going to do? Kill me?"

Regina clenched her jaw and a fireball ignited in her hand, "I'll give it my best try," she said in a low voice.

"You can't actually tell me that you were in love in her?" the brunet man said, "who could possibly love someone that despicable?"

"Why did you take her power if you find it so despicable?" Rumple asked, coming to stand in front of Regina. The woman recognized instantly that he was trying to tell her she stood no chance against the new Dark One and as much as she wanted to tear him limb from limb, she knew that her father was right, if she truly tried to face him, her children would only end up orphaned, something that she knew Emma would never ever want for them. So with a clenched jaw, she closed her hand around the flaming inferno and dropped back onto her knees next to her unmoving wife, softly pushing some of her blonde tresses away from her pale, cold skin.

"I took the power because I will be able to control it," Arthur laughed, "Merlin chose me to reunite Excalibur which clearly means that I am no ordinary man."

"And Miss Swan was no ordinary woman, yet she gave into the lure of the darkness. I highly doubt that you are in any way better equipped than the saviour to resist, in fact, I don't believe that you are in control in this very moment."

Arthur clenched his jaw at the other Dark One's words, a part of him knew that he was right and yet the other part didn't want to realise the truth.

Putting out his palm in the same way as he had seen Regina do, he smiled when a fireball instantly ignited itself in his hand.

"I am in perfect control," he sneered, "soon Excalibur will be reforged and there will not be a single person who can face me, not even you."

"Well until then," Mr Gold retorted, his hand coming out to cast a spell, a moment later, his own dagger appeared in his hand, "you will be just as vulnerable as any other Dark One. This metal is the only thing capable of ending your life and I'm very sure that I can drive it through your heart before you can figure out how your magic works."

Arthur panicked and desperately tried to remember something about how poofing worked, but in all of his reading he had been so focused upon finding the dagger that he had neglected to research how he would use the power once he got it.

In a pathetic attempt to convince everyone that he was as powerful as he thought he was, he sent the fireball hurling at Rumple.

The older Dark One simply laughed at his attempt and waved his hand, making the flames instantly disappear into thin air.

"You can't possibly wish to end the Dark One cycle," Arthur said, taking steps back as Rumple approached him.

"I have made the mistake in the past of choosing the power over someone who I should have protected, it is certainly something that I am not planning to do again."

The younger man quickly brought up the dagger in his own hands and held it out defensively, but Rumple simply clicked his fingers and the untrained man's hand was held firmly in place, completely incapable of moving to thrust into the pawn store owner's heart.

With that, he drove the dagger in his own hand into Arthur's chest and then pulled back.

The brunette crumpled to the floor and Rumple watched with satisfaction as the other dagger fell to the ground, it's dark surface turning blank now that it was no longer tethered to anyone.

"I believe that the essence of the Dark One is trapped," Rumple announced.

"How did you know that would work?" Cora breathed, pulling a very scared Emily closer to her body.

Rumple just shrugged and replied, "I had no idea, it just seemed like the most plausible plan."

Cora smiled slightly at this, before her smile quickly fell and she looked over to her daughter who was still knelt next to Emma.

"Regina…" she began, though she quickly trailed off when she realised there were no words that could possibly help the woman who had lost so much, mostly because of her own mother.

The brunette didn't even bother to look up and Snow stood from her seat, she was about to walk over to her daughter before she realised that she was still holding Neal and she quickly passed the boy to [Regina] without a second thought.

The younger mayor blinked a couple times as the boy fell comfortably into her arms in a matter of seconds, but she soon turned back to watch as Snow and Charming went over to kneel on the other side of their daughter.

"There must be something that we can do," Snow said with a slight catch in her voice as her eyes travelled over Emma, clearly taking in the fact that she now looked like the past version of her standing awkwardly across the room.

[Emma] had been watching the entire scene in complete silence, she was half shocked that she had just successfully performed magic and half shocked that it seemed to have done literally nothing to help.

To be fair, Arthur had been stopped because she had decided to bring them here, but she had still watched herself die, which was not something that anyone would ever wish to see.

Then there was the sad fact that Tamsin and Emily were staring intently at her, clearly both so confused about what exactly had happened to their mother. The children could not quite understand what the concept of time travel meant, they had no idea that they would eventually have to return to the future without a living version of their blonde mother.

"Like what?" Regina asked, to most people in the room, the absence of bitterness came as a shock, the woman actually sounded hopeful, as if she knew that everything would turn out for the best.

Snow swallowed hard and look back at Emma, before a small glint formed in her eye as an idea occurred to her, "her heart…"

Charming furrowed his brow, before his mouth fell open when he realised what his wife was talking about, "remove her heart, Regina," he asked, more than commanded.

The brunette clearly had no idea what either of them were talking about, but at this point, she had learned that things tended to go the way they wanted to them to.

It was for this reason that she reached forward and, after a slight hesitation, she plunged her hand into her wife's chest.

She bit her lip as her hand closed around the unmoving organ and she pulled back as quickly as possible.

When she opened her hand, she swallowed hard at the sight of the dim sphere, vacant of the pulsing red that she was so used to seeing after taking someone's heart.

When the former Evil Queen opened her palm, the heart instantly began to crumble without even the need for the slightest amount of pressure and soon the saviour's heart was just a small pile of dust on the floor.

Regina blinked at it a couple of times before she looked back up at the Charmings, who were wearing somewhat hopeful expressions. Without the need for any words, she realised exactly what they were thinking and she began shaking her head.

"There is no way that would work…" she said weakly.

Snow looked at her husband and sighed, she knew that Regina still had some issues believing that she was strong enough to be Emma's True Love, but she had no doubt after all of the amazing feats she had seen them perform together, that this would work.

"But would you be able to live the rest of your life knowing that you didn't try?" Snow asked softly, resisting the urge to tell the woman to stop being stupid so that she could bring her daughter back to her.

Regina looked over her shoulder at Tamsin, Emily and Henry, at their expressions and then she knew she had to try. She certainly wouldn't be the only one who would be lost if they had to return to the future with just the saviour's body and she couldn't imagine how she could possibly live knowing that she was too afraid of failure to try every option.

"What are you talking about?" [Snow] finally exploded.

Henry finally seemed to catch on and a hopeful smile began tugging at his lips.

He turned to the past version of his grandma and said, "it's possible for people who share True Love to share one heart."

Snow nodded her agreement and her younger counterpart just began shaking her head, "there is no way that I will allow my daughter to share a heart with…with her," she shouted, throwing her arm out to point at [Regina] who ignored her and continued to look at Emma, while she held Neal.

"Shut up," Snow retorted, noting later that she would need to thank Regina for managing to restrain herself from her murderous tendencies. In that moment, she could see herself for the insufferable princess that she was, though she would have never thought that she would have allowed her disapproval to stand in the way of her own daughter's chance at life.

The younger version of the princess opened her mouth, before she looked over to [Emma] and back to her older, unmoving counterpart. She was clearly trying to connect the fact that the two blondes were in fact one and the same, and that this would be her little girl's ultimate fate.

Finally, she seemed to concede that she had no real power in this situation and just looked down at her lap, trying to blink back the plethora of emotions that were assaulting her.

Regina looked up at her mother-in-law tentatively and then turned to look at her own mother, who was wearing a very much concerned expression.

"Do you truly think that this could work?" Cora asked cautiously, though if the distraught expression that her daughter was wearing was anything to go by, she knew that there was no way that she wouldn't be trying this.

Regina only nodded and the former Queen of Hearts bit her lip in worry, but she still turned and handed Tamsin to Henry.

The woman ignored all of the stares as she walked over to the older version of the former Evil Queen, who rose to her feet as her mother approached and looked at the older woman almost pleadingly, begging her to save her wife's life.

Cora brought her bottom lip into her mouth and began worrying at it intently, this was not something she would have ever thought she would be doing, even in her darkest days, but for once in her life, she would be taking a heart to save a person's life. She was actually doing it for her child, no matter how much she dreaded the idea of it going wrong.

With a final reassuring look at the Charmings from her time, she reminded herself that what she was about to do was very much possible and she hardly doubted that Regina and Emma shared the same kind of True Love as the two idiots.

So, with a deep breath, and a quick reassuring nod from Regina, she reached forward and her hand sank into the woman's chest.

She heard a sharp intake of breath and looked across the room to see [Henry] staring at the scene, completely dumbfounded. She had to wonder just how much the little boy had been forced to take in during this little crisis, and she had to admit that seeing the grandmother he had never met taking his mother's heart had to be one of the strangest things he had seen yet. It was for this reason that she was thankful that his older counterpart was holding Tamsin closely to his body and had his hand firmly on Emily's shoulder, preventing either of them seeing any more traumatic scenes.

As quick and painlessly as possible, she pulled her arm back, but she still heard a very quiet little cry of pain from Regina as she had her most vital organ removed from her chest.

For a moment, everyone simply started at the glowing, beating sphere, and [Snow's] eyes widened at the sight of the red, granted slightly blackened, orb. The princess had expected something far darker, something irredeemable, but the core of the organ was shining brighter than any of the darkness around its fringes and she could tell that it wouldn't be long before it was as light as any other hero's heart.

"You may want to sit down for this, dear," Cora announced, worry clinging to each inflection of her voice as she brought up her other hand to handle the sensitive heart.

Regina just looked down at Emma for a moment, she knew that most people would be expecting her to sit on the couch, at least those from the past. Those from the future, however, were not at all surprised when she, somehow, fell to the ground and took a seat next to her wife.

Cora inspected her expression, which was a mix of foreboding and hope and swallowed hard as she hesitated. Ultimately, however, she still slightly tightened her grip on either side of the heart and twisted as lightly as she possibly could and still achieve her goal.

She watched tried not to look at the pained expression on her daughter's face and she knew that she was trying to hide the intense pain consuming her chest.

A moment later, she pulled the pulsing heart into two pieces, and she almost felt her own heart stop as she felt the tissue under her fingers weaken slightly.

Kneeling quickly, she allowed her eyes to travel over her unmoving daughter-in-law and then over to Regina, whose eyes were drooping slightly. Without any further hesitation, she reached forward and plunged one hand into Emma's chest and the other into her daughter's.

Regina took in a sharp breath and she felt a noticeably weaker beat in her chest, she swallowed hard and thought about how angry her wife would be with her for trying something so foolish.

Her eyelids became heavier and she felt as if it was the end, until she suddenly felt the fingers she Emma's hand come to lay on her leg and she felt a kind of warmth spread through her chest.

"Emma?" she breathed.

The blonde cracked open her eyes, her brows furrowed as she looked around the room, before she slowly sat up and looked down at herself in confusion.

"What am I wearing?" she asked, blinking at the red jacket that she had secretly being wishing she could wear for months.

The saviour's eyes fell on the brown orbs staring intently at her and she instantly felt the combination of love and worry and she knew exactly what her wife had chosen to do.

Bringing her hand up, she placed her hand over her heart and smiled slightly, she was about to say the three words she had been wanting to say since she had taken on the curse, but she was cut short.

"Mommy!" Tamsin shouted, wriggling out of her brother's arms, she ran over to the woman who she could now tell was the mother she had been missing for so many months.

Emma looked over at the little blonde and caught her in a tight hug.

A moment later, the older of the two sneezed and tried to blink away the nausea that overtook her stomach.

"Are you sick, mommy?" Emily asked, as she came over to join the hug.

"I…" the saviour began to trail off, as she fell back against her parents, who quickly caught the now unconscious woman still being hugged tightly by her daughter.

Snow brought her hand to her head and frowned, "she has a fever…"

"She'll be fine," Rumple announced, before anyone could panic, "her body needs time to adjust to the loss of that amount of dark magic."

"I guess we have to stay here a little longer then," Henry sighed as he picked up his youngest sister.

Regina pulled Tamsin towards her so that Charming could pick up Emma and take her over to Snow's bed.

"I suppose we do," she sighed in response and went to follow her father-in-law.

 **A/N As always, I need to thank QueenApples for being such an amazing beta and PerditusFic for helping me with ideas XD**

 **There should be one or two chapters left and they will be pretty fluffy, let me know what you thought of this chapter, always love to hear from you guys :)**


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter thirteen

Emma opened her eyes slowly and furrowed her brow as she looked around the apartment.

Suddenly, everything she had done in the past few months came flooding back and she winced, only to feel someone grip her stomach even tighter. Looking down, she smiled at the little blonde nestled in her arms, with her brunette sister sleeping on her other side, hugging her other mother, who was very much awake.

"Hey," the blonde said looking into her wife's worry filled eyes as she sat up as slowly as possible, so as not to wake either of the children.

"Hey," Regina laughed lightly, she had thought about being mad at the woman for sacrificing herself in the first place, but after nearly losing her, she was pretty sure that it would be a long time before she could ever even be remotely angry at her again. "Are you feeling any better?"

"Not really," she sighed, "but I guess being conscious means I'm getting better, right?"

The brunette nodded her agreement and they fell into a kind of comfortable silence, before Emma seemed to notice something, "where did everyone go?"

"Your parents and Neal went with…me and the two Henrys to the mansion. My mother and Gold took Arthur and Zelena somewhere for the time being and the other Charmings refused to leave their apartment, so I think they're upstairs…."

"What about…me?" the blonde asked, trying not to laugh at how utterly ridiculous this entire situation was.

"She went to the mansion with Henry."

Emma smirked as she considered why the woman hadn't simply chosen to sleep on the couch. Of course, it was entirely possible that she didn't want to have to deal with seeing her future family, but it didn't escape her counterpart's attention that she had decided to go with **[Regina]**.

"So when do you think we can go home?" the saviour asked, hope clinging to her tone.

Regina sighed happily at the thought of everything going back to the perfection that it had been before the whole Dark One situation, but she just shook her head, "we told them that we have to wait for you to get better, but that isn't strictly true…"

"So we have to wait until we find a way to make them forget everything that happened," Emma groaned, she honestly just wanted to go back to the future version of the mansion and sleep in her own bed.

The brunette nodded her agreement and they each sighed deeply.

The pair fell into silence and Tamsin made an adorable little grunting noise, sleepily tightening her grip on her blonde mother. Emma looked down at the blonde mess of hair and grinned widely.

When she looked back up at her wife's relieved expression, her smile fell and she looked away, "I'm really sorry…"

Regina furrowed her brow and tilted her head, "what could you possibly be sorry for?"

"Everything," Emma breathed, "I would have killed Henry...I hurt Neal…"

"That wasn't you, you idiot," the brunette replied.

The blonde continued to look down for a moment, before she allowed a grin to tug at the corner of her lips and she looked up at her wife, "it's nice to have you back too," she chuckled.

"You get a pass for being controlled by ultimate darkness," Regina smirked.

"I'll try never to do it again then," Emma smiled as she leaned forward to capture her wife's lips in a long awaited kiss.

Regina's lips responded instantly, and she smiled into the kiss.

They continued like this for a full two minutes, each of them completely deaf to their surroundings, that was until they heard a little squeak.

Emma pulled back and looked over in the direction of the sound, only to be blinded by a torch light from a phone.

"Mom?" she asked, her mind not quite realising that the paled woman, who had simply come down in the pursuit of a glass of water, was not the accepting mother she knew and loved in the future.

 **[Snow]** looked between the pair and desperately tried to get the image of their connected lips out of her mind, but her brain seemed to decide that it couldn't take the memory and she fell to the ground, her eyes rolling back into her head.

"She is so dramatic," Emma sighed and the girl in Regina's arms blinked her eyes opened as her brunette mother rolled her eyes and made her way over to the unconscious woman.

"Grandma?" Emily asked sleepily from next to Emma, watching as Regina went over to check on her.

"She'll be fine, peanut," the blonde assured, using her free arm to bring her youngest daughter closer to her body, "right, Gina?"

Regina looked down at the past version of her mother-in-law and soon discerned that she would be fine, "yes, Emily, your grandmother will be fine."

The brunette nodded sleepily and allowed her head to fall onto her blonde mother's shoulder as she allowed her heavy eyes to shut and returned to sleep.

"What are you going to do?" Emma asked, trying not to laugh at the fact that her mother had actually fainted just because she saw the two of them kiss. She knew that she probably could have been hurt by that fact, but this woman had only a day to get used to the idea of her daughter being with her former mortal enemy. The mother that she knew in the future did have a lot longer to come to terms with the fact that Emma liked her and eventually basically forced her to ask the woman out after a year of pining.

"Well we both know I'm not going to carry her," the brunette replied, before waving her hand and sending the woman back upstairs.

"You could have just got my dad to carry her, you know?" Emma chuckled as her wife returned back to the bed, "you probably just freaked him out."

"I believe that you got your inability to wake up from your father, dear, I think we'll be fine," Regina replied, allowing Emma to bring her arm around her shoulder, so that she was now hugging both of the brunettes.

"So…do we have a plan for making sure the future is normal?" Emma asked after a comfortable moment of silence.

Regina let out a deep sigh and dropped her head onto the pillow, "can we please talk about it in the morning? I haven't had a good night's sleep in a long time."

The blonde just nodded, choosing to smile, rather than comment, at the fact that Regina needed her around to be able to sleep comfortably.

"Sure, babe," she replied, bringing both her and Emily closer, she closed her eyes, but was unable to keep the smile off her face as she attempted to fall back to sleep with her wife and children so close to her again after so many months of loneliness.

* * *

 **[Regina]** stared intently at the coffee machine and waited for it to pour her a hot beverage.

Coffee wasn't really what she wanted, considering all she had learnt today, but with so many people occupying her house for the night, she hardly thought that alcohol would be acceptable. Especially since she now had two versions of her son here. However, if this machine took just one more minute, she was sure that she was going to give up her resolve and just go to her study, everyone was probably asleep in their respective guest rooms at this point anyway.

"Who has coffee at one in the morning?" someone asked from behind her.

 **[Regina]** jumped and then scowled as she turned to look at the blonde, though it didn't seem as though **[Emma]** was planning to be tentative around her anymore. They both knew the future after all, even if the brunette of the two wasn't completely sure that she was ready to embrace it as much as the younger woman seemed to have done.

"I'm not particularly tired at the moment, Miss Swan," she replied, "who comes to another person's kitchen at one in the morning?"

"I couldn't sleep and I heard someone down here…"

"So you decided to come and talk to me?" the brunette deadpanned.

 **[Emma]** shrugged and came over to sit on the stool on the other side of the counter without any hesitation, "why not?"

"Before today, I would have given you many reasons 'why not'," the older woman replied, before she turned around and noticed that the coffee was done.

Grabbing a mug, she poured some of the liquid in it, before she looked over at the blonde and rolled her eyes, as she grabbed another mug and poured her one.

The saviour caught the mug full of hot liquid that was slid across the counter and held its warmth close to her body.

"So…does this mean that you want to talk to me?" the blonde asked with a small smirk.

The mayor just let out a huff and said, "this just means that I would rather not waste my coffee."

"Then you should have just made enough for you."

"What is it that you wanted to talk about, Miss Swan?" the brunette sighed, she wasn't quite sure why she hadn't already sent the woman away.

"You know exactly what I want to talk about, Regina, we can't just ignore everything we found out…" **[Emma]** replied with an exasperated sigh.

"Really? Because I had every intention of doing just that," the older woman said, refusing to make eye contact.

"You want to just ignore the fact that we end up married?"

"Of course not, it's almost as if I have been given a kind of warning," **[Regina]** replied.

The blonde just rolled her eyes and said, "do you really think it would be that bad to be married to me? I mean…you look pretty happy in the future…"

"I thought you would have been the first to deny that this was possible," the brunette shot back, "are you trying to tell me that you want it to happen?"

"I'm not…you know…like proposing right now or anything, I'm just saying…maybe it wouldn't be the craziest thing in the world. We would have Henry, Tamsin and Emily and you clearly loved me enough to be able to share a heart…."

"Is this where you begin to lecture me on the merits of True Love?" **[Regina]** sighed.

"Obviously not, I'm not even remotely ready to be in that kind of relationship. But I am ready to say that I might want to go out with you…eventually…" the blonde replied, "can you say that you wouldn't want to have that future?"

"It did look rather wonderful," the former Evil Queen mumbled, again refusing to look into those green eyes that she had been attracted to since the first time she had seen them. She had never thought that she would get a chance to act on those feelings and had long since replaced them with the indifference and anger that fuelled their current relationship.

"So would you honestly give that up just because it is with me?"

"I didn't say that…" the brunette replied.

 **[Emma]** perked up at her words and allowed a smile to tug at the corner of her lips at the prospect that the future would actually come true, before she frowned as a thought occurred to her.

"Do you have the feeling that there is no way it could happen exactly how it's supposed to considering that we already know all of it?"

 **[Regina]** took a moment to think about this, it was hard to deny that she was hardly emotionally stable enough to know that she was going to have a relationship with the saviour that would eventually turn into a marriage with three children. She also imagined that knowing would probably take the magic out of all of their significant relationship milestones.

"There is not anything that I can do about that…" the brunette sighed, bringing her coffee to her lips.

The blonde nodded to say that she had no ideas either and picked up her own beverage to take a drink.

For the first time since they met, the pair actually fell into a comfortable silence.

* * *

 **[Henry]** bit his lip and considered whether this would be worth it, but he knew that he could hardly pass up this opportunity, it wasn't as if he would be getting it again anytime soon.

So, with a steadying breath, he knocked lightly at the guest room across from his own bedroom.

For a moment there was no reply and he told himself that it was too early in the morning and that he should just give up on this ridiculous idea, before he heard a light, "come in," from inside.

The little brunette pushed the door open and walked tentatively into the room, flicking on the light as he went, he inspected the teen sat on the bed, his pen stilled on a notebook that he appeared to have already filled half of.

"Hey…" the older Henry said somewhat awkwardly, nervously playing his pen, he had honestly expected his grandparents or Neal, or even the past version of his brunette mother. But when he thought more about it, it made complete sense that it would be **[Henry]**.

"I wanted to ask you something…" the younger of the two said, rocking on the balls of his feet as he tried to word exactly what he wanted to ask.

Henry tilted his head and nodded, shifting on the bed, he patted the space next to him and the little brunette came to perch himself on the edge, trying to not sit too close to the older boy.

"Is it about mom?" he asked after a moment.

"How can you call her that?" **[Henry]** snapped, "she's evil…"

"Would an evil person give up half of their heart to save the person who was basically born to be their arch enemy?"

The younger brunette sighed, that had been something that was bothering him more than he could figure the reason for. Regina and **[Regina]** didn't seem as different to him as they should. The major difference was that the older woman seemed happy, something he had witnessed for the first ten years of his life, before he had decided that she was the Evil Queen and didn't deserve happiness. However, it seemed as though a redeemed Evil Queen was just as capable of being a hero as the saviour. The woman would well and truly become a part of the Charming family and he just didn't know how he felt about that.

"How could you forgive her for lying?"

Henry raised his eyebrow at his younger counterpart and he realised that he probably should have known that would be his first question, but it wasn't something that he had thought in years. The memories were certainly unpleasant, but in his mind, that woman was Mayor Mills, a woman who no longer existed. Now his mother was Regina Swan-Mills and he had no idea how he could possibly explain that to a boy who would still need time to even think about forgiving the woman who had labelled him as a freak.

There was silence for a moment, before the older brunette remembered something that had made him think about forgiving his mother.

"She created the curse because she thought that it would be her happy ending, but it wasn't…"

"So she cursed a realm full of people because she was unhappy?" **[Henry]** frowned, honestly not seeing how this was helping her case.

"She wasn't just unhappy…she was miserable…you don't know about Daniel yet…"

The younger brunette tilted his head at the name, all he had been told was that his middle name was after someone very special who was no longer with them. He had certainly been curious who the Evil Queen could have cared enough about to honour in the same way that she did her father, but every time he even brought up the matter, Regina would get misty eyed and tell him the same thing, before sending him to do his homework or something.

"She wouldn't tell me…"

"Mom not 'she'," Henry corrected.

"Whatever," **[Henry]** scowled, "I don't see what your point is…"

"Grandma…I mean Cora, killed Daniel because she wanted mom to become the queen and mom wanted to marry the stable boy. She thought he was her True Love and that she lost any opportunity to be happy. It was all because Snow told Cora that mom was planning to run away with Daniel. That's why she hated Snow for so long…because she thought she took away her happy ending…"

The younger of the two took a moment to take all of this in, it certainly made him see her in a different light, but it didn't change the fact that she committed so many heinous crimes against people.

"She cursed an entire realm…"

"Look, I get that you can't forgive so easily, but it's not fair to expect mom to be different and not give her the chance to actually get redemption. I know that it's hard to see it now, but not everything is black and white. Snow and David didn't always do the right thing in the Enchanted Forest and you've seen what happened to Emma. No one is purely good or purely evil and the sooner that you understand that, the sooner you can actually be happy."

 **[Henry]** just looked down at his lap and shook his head, it was all very logical, but he was still pissed at his adoptive mother for everything she had done.

"She made me think I was crazy…" he sighed, refusing to make eye contact with the older boy.

"She was afraid, if the curse broke, then she would lose everything that she had for nearly three decades. She thought that she would lose you and she did for a while…" he sighed, thinking back to how miserable he had made his mother. No matter how he had rationalised it at the time, he knew now that he was wrong to not at least give the woman who had raised him a chance. But he also knew that this entire conversation was pointless, especially considering he already kind of had an idea what Cora was planning before they returned to their time. Nevertheless, it did feel good to lecture himself, something that the adults in his life should have done long before the whole Neverland debacle. "The point is that pushing her away is not what you want, no matter how angry you are with her. How would you feel if the mob had actually killed her?"

"Obviously that doesn't happen," the younger brunette mumbled, blinking away tears at the mere thought of that having happened.

"But there are loads of other times that I could have lost her and she would have never even known that I still loved her. Do you honestly think that you would be able to deal with the guilt if she died thinking that you didn't love her?"

 **[Henry]** swallowed hard and just nodded, choosing not to clarify, not that he needed to for his older counterpart.

"Won't knowing the future mess it up?" the younger boy asked after a moment of silence.

Henry smiled at his concern, despite all of his protests, the boy clearly wasn't opposed to the future he had seen.

"I wouldn't worry about that too much, there is no way mom and ma are going to let the future be changed, especially now that ma is back."

The younger brunette nodded and they returned to a silence, before he said, "I have so many more questions…"

"It would probably be better if you just wait and see," Henry chuckled, "you should really go to bed anyway, mom will be pissed if she finds out that you're still awake."

 **[Henry]** just nodded his understanding, he did get the distinct feeling that nothing he asked would have any point and he didn't know why.

He actually smiled slightly when he stood and made his way to the door.

Though the stubborn boy wouldn't admit it out loud, he was actually quite looking forward to a future in which he had such a big family, especially now that he knew that it would include Regina.

S

"May I ask what you are invading my collection for?" Gold asked with narrowed eyes as he watched the woman he felt a mix of anger towards and something he couldn't quite identify.

Cora looked over her shoulder and offered the man a tentative smile, she had certainly missed her husband since he had descended into his coma, but she could hardly deny that this man didn't quite love her yet.

"I think that we can both agree that it is necessary to protect the future," she replied, a slight edge to her voice making her sound almost hopeful that he actually agreed.

Gold furrowed his brow and crossed his arms, "you have your heart back?"

"I would have thought that it was far more obvious," she chuckled, "do you honestly believe that Regina would allow the mother she knew near her daughters?"

"I suppose you have a point…"

Cora took a moment to inspect the man and let out a little sigh, "if you're wondering, it was you who returned my heart to me."

"And why would I do that?" he asked somewhat bitterly.

"When I revealed that Regina is in fact your daughter, I did it out of spite because I believed that I had already lost. You tried to crush my heart, but you knew that Regina would never be receptive to you as a father if you took away her only chance at a functioning mother…"

"And she is…receptive?" Gold frowned, he had seen that she didn't seem to hate him, but he found it hard to believe that they could have possibly built a relationship that could rival that of her and Henry Sr.

"She will never call you father…" Cora admitted, "but she does trust you more than anyone thought possible. She certainly has felt your absence…"

The former Queen of Hearts clamped her mouth shut when she realised that she had just revealed something that the man probably hadn't been told about.

"I already assumed that I died, though I can't imagine Miss Swan having been the one to take my life…"

"You didn't die and Emma didn't actively try to become the Dark One. Your heart was severely darkened and Merlin's apprentice tried to remove that darkness, it attacked Regina and Emma took it in herself. In the future, you are in a deep coma…"

Gold blinked a couple of times at this rather insane chain of events, he was certainly glad to hear that he wouldn't be reaching the end of his life any time soon, but he definitely didn't wish to remain in a coma either.

"You seem to care an odd amount about this…"

Cora considered her next move carefully, but in the end, she decided that there would be no point lying considering the plan she had already set up for how they were going to preserve the future, so she simply held up her left hand.

"How do you have my mother's ring?" he asked with narrowed eyes.

"This is your mother's ring?" the brunette retorted, she couldn't believe that she had never known that. "You have had this since childhood?"

"Yes," he sighed, not quite seeing the point, "but that doesn't answer why it is on your hand."

Cora ignored him and stared down at the little band with a smile. Gold had been worried that she wouldn't like its simplicity, but with her heart returned and a family who loved her, she found that she was no longer concerned with the grandiose. She was sure that her younger self would never quite believe how her life had worked out, but nevertheless, she couldn't imagine wanting anything else now that she had it.

"I can use it to end the coma," she breathed.

"What are you talking about?"

"There is a spell that will return your strength, but I gave up hope on it when I discovered that it required something that you touched before you were infected with darkness…"

Gold didn't seem to take in anything, other than the implications of the ring, "how could I marry you? Belle is my True Love…"

"No actually, she's not," Cora deadpanned, "she much prefers her life as a lycanthrope. She and Ruby make quite the good couple."

The Dark One blinked a couple of times and leaned further against the grandfather clock as he took in this information. He was sure that he should probably care more about the fact that his girlfriend would be with another in the future, but he found that he just couldn't care as much as he should. In fact, he wasn't having the feeling of disgust that he was expecting at marrying the Queen of Hearts.

"So in the future, I marry you and Regina is my daughter, is there anything else I should know?"

Cora swallowed hard and shook her head, she knew that he was talking about Baelfire, but she would be helping anyone if she told him what happened. There was no way that he would agree to forget that information and then everyone's happy endings would be in jeopardy.

"Not anything I can think of," she replied, turning back to look at the cabinet she had been searching through.

"What are you looking for?" Gold sighed, sensing that he didn't want to know whatever she was lying about. For once he found that he didn't have a burning desire to know what was going to happen, he actually felt content just allowing things to happen.

"For the future to remain intact, everyone in town must forget the past twenty-four hours. They must all go back to believing that the curse just broke so that things can happen as they should."

Gold thought back to what he had been thinking about twenty-four hours ago and he instantly began shaking his head, "if I forget then I will go back to wishing to get revenge on Regina…"

"I know it's difficult, but what you have planned has to happen to set off the chain of events that will result in the inevitable future."

The man took a deep breath and nodded, "a town wide curse will require some kind of sacrifice."

"I believe you choosing to forget what you have learnt will be quite the sacrifice," she returned, and Gold looked shocked for a moment at just how well the woman seemed to know him.

"Perhaps you're right," he sighed, reaching forward to grab what she was looking for, "I will begin writing this curse, but the moment Emma and Regina kiss, they will remember…"

"Not if you have the curse break on a certain day. If you make it the day we will return to, then we will simply remember the same events from a different point of view."

The Dark One looked over his shoulder and noticed just how close he was standing to the woman and smiled at her, he had forgotten just how brilliant she could be.

After a moment, he realised that he had been looking at her far too long and cleared his throat to remind her that he wasn't her husband, at least not yet.

"I'll see what I can do," he said, turning around to place the parchment on the counter.

Cora looked at his back and then down to her wedding ring. She knew that it was a lot to give up, but she was sure that having the man she loved back was worth more, no matter how sentimental it was to him.

"Thank you."

 **A/N Reviews would be much appreciated XD**


	14. Chapter 14

**Sorry for uploading the wrong chapter guys, sorry for any confusion with updates, it should all be fixed now :)**

 **A/N Just please note that I made a mistake in the a/n of chapter 2 (which I have now changed), the timeline for this fic does include 3a, but the missing year took place in Storybrooke with no one losing their memories, hope this isn't too confusing, but it doesn't really affect much anyway...**

Chapter fourteen

 **[Snow]** opened her eyes slowly and instantly scrunched them shut at the sight of light streaming through the Emma's bedroom window.

Her mind took a few seconds to figure out exactly why she and her husband had slept in their daughter's bed, before everything came crashing back.

The brunette shot up, with **[David's]** arms still around her waist and she looked around, desperately wishing that her memories were somehow wrong.

Her frantic atmosphere seemed to have woken the blond man who was sleeping soundly a moment ago and with grogginess clinging to his voice, he said, "Snow, what's wrong?"

"Everything," she replied instantly.

The prince kept his eyes closed for a moment later as he sighed deeply, before he finally opened them and sat up to look at his wife.

"We can't change the future," the blond said simply, he could certainly understand **[Snow's]** rejection to what was going to happen, but he had a feeling that he wasn't nearly as bothered by what was going to happen as she was. At first, the idea of his daughter and the Evil Queen getting married and having two children had been completely unthinkable, but that changed when Emma had been freed from the darkness. The way that she had looked at Regina in the moments before she lost consciousness, he had seen the same kind of love as he had felt every time he saw **[Snow]**. No matter how disturbing the prospect was to him, he couldn't imagine ever standing in the way of his child's happiness. Plus, there was the fact that Regina seemed to be a completely different woman, he couldn't imagine that the Evil Queen would have ever even thought about sharing her heart.

The brunette sighed at his words and she shook her head, "that doesn't mean that I want to see it."

"What are you talking about?" **[David]** asked with a furrowed brow.

"I went down to the kitchen last night to get a glass of water and they were…kissing…"

The blond cringed and then relaxed when she just said 'kissing', but then he reminded himself that they did have two young children in the bed, so there was no way it could have been the thing that he never wanted to think about, ever.

"They have been apart for quite some time, Snow," he replied after a moment of thought, "if I suddenly came back from darkness would you not want to at least share a kiss?"

The brunette just let out a huff and crossed her arms, "can you please not compare them to us?"

"It's pretty hard to deny that they are True Loves," he said softly bringing her arm around the woman's shoulder, he pulled her closer, hoping that it would comfort her at least a little. "Plus, we seem pretty okay with it in the future…"

"I'm not sure that I can ever get to that point," **[Snow]** sighed, bringing her hand up to wipe across her face.

 **[David]** considered this for a moment, before he sighed and nodded in agreement.

It was the look of love that had convinced him that he should try and get used to the idea, but when those from the future left, he doubted that he would see it again for a while.

Now that he had plainly been shown what would happen, he hardly doubted that **[Emma]** and **[Regina]** were at the very least physically attracted to one another. But he also imagined that it took a lot for either of them to even consider that it could be more than that, let alone for them to admit it to each other.

The younger version of the former Evil Queen would probably take far longer than his daughter to agree to embrace the future they had seen and he could see that hurting **[Emma]**. He knew that if that was how things were to play out, not only would they have completely messed up the timeline, but it wouldn't be long before he would be incapable of putting his hate for the mayor aside.

"I don't think we will either…it would probably be easier to get used to it if we didn't already know that it's going to happen…"

The brunette nodded her agreement and they each sighed and fell into silence as they silently contemplated what they could possibly do to make sure that the timeline wasn't completely destroyed.

 **[David]** looked sideways at the woman in his arms and furrowed his brow when he saw a small grin spreading across her face, "what?" he laughed.

"I was just thinking…do you think Emma looked like Tamsin when she was younger?"

"I have no doubt," he replied, mirroring her smile at just how adorable their daughter probably was.

They remained in thought for a few seconds longer, before **[Snow]** looked sideways at the clock, "we should probably go and make breakfast…"

The blond nodded, though he seemed just as reluctant to go downstairs as his wife.

However, after they remained put for a couple of seconds, they both seemed to decide that they couldn't exactly remain in hiding and they each go up and proceeded down to the kitchen.

Halfway down, it became evident that everyone else had already arrived at the apartment, though they all remained in relative silence as Regina and Snow made breakfast.

Her counterpart sat on the couch, feigning disinterest in everything, **[Emma]** on the other side with **[Henry]** in the middle. They clearly made a very good looking family, though the three of them didn't yet seem to be completely comfortable with each other. On the recliner the other side of them was Charming with Neal sat on his lap, with Henry sat crossed legged on the floor intently writing in a book.

Cora and Gold sat the counter, clearly discussing something important, and sitting on the counter was the youngest Swan-Mills child, intently watching her mother and grandmother cooking.

 **[Snow]** and **[Charming]** exchanged a look, before they looked around to see the final two missing people.

Lay in **[Snow's]** bed was two sleeping blondes, each still looking feverish.

Tamsin was clinging tightly to her mother and despite her illness, it appeared that she was smiling in her sleep.

The pair made their way across the apartment and came to sit on the stools next to Cora and Gold, and they both saw that the two of them were going through a spell book.

"Morning," Snow mumbled as she grabbed some bread to toast, while also handing a spatula to her daughter-in-law, who began working on the fried eggs in the pan.

 **[Snow]** just awkwardly inclined her head and then looked over to the future version of her daughter, "is she any better?"

"I believe a few hours of sleep should suffice for the saviour to return to her old self," Gold answered as he flipped to the next page of the magical tome, almost disinterestedly.

The youngest brunette nodded and smiled slightly as both Emma and Tamsin let out similar sleeping sounds, she had to admit that Tamsin and Emily were certainly helping her to not be completely blindly angry about the state of the future.

Then, of course, there was Neal to think about.

As much as she was glad to have Emma back, even if she was an adult, she could hardly deny that raising a child from infancy was what she always wanted, but it was obviously something she hadn't planned to bring up for a very long time. She had to wonder exactly when they had discussed it and what Emma's initial reaction had been to it. Of course, she hadn't seen how the blonde treated her brother without the darkness controlling her, but as she looked over and watched her bring her daughter protectively closer to her body, she somehow doubted that it was anything like what she'd had the high displeasure of seeing the day before.

Ten minutes passed with no one saying anything, honestly, no one could think of what could possibly be left to say.

Regina and Snow began to pile a buffet of breakfast food onto the counter, and it didn't take long for everyone to come and take their own portion of it, making sure to leave some for the sleeping blondes.

 **[Snow]** watched in interest as Gold continued to read, not even bothering to get any food, and finally she couldn't take the curiosity any longer, "what is that?"

Gold looked up at the princess as if he were just realising that there were other people in the apartment, and he said, "it's a book."

The brunette rolled her eyes and noticed both versions of Regina smirked at his response, "what's inside the book?" she sighed.

"Well I'm assuming that no one here wishes for the integrity of the timeline to be in danger, so everyone in town must forget what happened and go back to what they were doing yesterday."

"But the mob," **[Henry]** said weakly.

 **[Regina]** looked sideways at him and felt a mix of shock and happiness, he was actually showing that he cared for her, even if he seemed resolute to not seat too close to her, leaving a buffer of about three inches on the couch.

"They must not have caused much damage," **[Emma]** said reassuringly, inclining her head to put at the future version of Regina, who looked to be very much intact.

The little brunette seemed to relax at this and went back to working on food on his plate.

"How do you plan to make everyone in town forget?" **[David]** asked with a very confused expression.

"A curse," Rumple replied simply, "I think that the wishing well in the woods will do for a place to cast it from. Everyone will forget everything up until when the curse broke, and in theory, after some confusion, they should go about whatever they were about to do and everything should happen as it was always meant to."

The silence in the room seemed to indicate that everyone in the room had no objections to this plan, which was somewhat shocking for all of those from the future.

Regina was sure that at the very least, **[Charming]** and **[Snow]** would be making some grand speech as to why they have to remember so that they could avoid the great mistake that Emma was going to make. However, when she looked at the brunette and blond, they each seemed to be perfectly fine with the plan, almost relieved that they had gotten an easy way out of the burden of carrying knowledge of the future.

"It will take some planning to ensure that every person in town is in the same position they were at the exact moment that the curse broke," Cora announced, "I'm sure that there will be people unwilling to give us that information…"

"I believe that Emma will be able to help with that once she is back to full strength, she has become strangely adept with dreamcatchers. She should be able to see where each person was when the curse broke," Regina replied.

 **[Emma]** furrowed her brow, clearly trying to figure out exactly what that meant, but she decided to just brush it off, after all, it wasn't as if she would be remembering that little piece of information for much longer.

"So we have to wait for Ma to wake up?" Henry asked, finally looking up from what he had been writing, "she hasn't slept in a while…"

"Why?" **[Snow]** asked, looking worriedly over to the blonde.

"Dark Ones don't sleep," Rumple replied without looking up at the princess.

"Oh."

They fell into silence once again, all proceeding to wait for the saviour to wake up.

* * *

Neal sat cross legged and watched curiously as the people around him seemed to be planning everything they needed to get home.

Frankly, he couldn't wait for everything to just go back to normal.

Over the past few months of his life, he had missed his sister dearly, and it was only made worse when he saw the affect her absence was having on those around him.

His parents looked more than lost and almost guilty every time they did something for them. His two nieces were distraught and constantly asking where their mother was and Henry and Regina just seemed withdrawn from everyone. He wasn't yet old enough to understand the way that his aunt chose to deal with emotions, but he did understand that whenever there was something Henry didn't want to deal with, he would just isolate himself and write.

Overall, his whole family had been falling apart at the seams and all they needed was for Emma to come back.

The first time he had seen his sister as the Dark One, he had actually laughed at how ridiculous she looked, the look and act just didn't suit her and he found it funny at the time.

But when the blonde had looked at him, he had found the laugh die in his throat.

As the Dark One, she was no longer the saviour who they all loved and he had actually been terrified. Snow had hugged him that night and explained to him why Emma wasn't herself and he had asked her what they could do to get her back. She had simply replied that she didn't know, worry etched into every feature of her face.

So, while everyone else tried to decide exactly what they were going to do to ensure the timeline was secure, he stared at the sleeping blonde, willing her to wake up so that he could see if she was indeed the sister he had been missing.

It was for this reason that the young was the first to notice when her face twitched and she slowly began opening her eyes.

As she did so, he stood and managed to get over to the bed without anyone noticing.

Emma didn't look up at him straightaway as she brought her hand up to rest on Tamsin's forehead and smiled when she felt that her fever must have broken in her sleep.

"Emma?" Neal asked timidly in a whisper.

The emerald green eyes that they both shared were looking at him within a split second and the blonde smiled at him, though it soon turned into a frown when images of her own actions the previous day began flooding her mind.

"Hey buddy," she said after a moment.

A huge smile spread across his face at the familiar nickname and he was practically vibrating when he said, "you're back."

This caught everyone's attention and they all looked over to the scene.

 **[Snow]** couldn't help but smile when the son she was yet to have climbed up onto the bed just so that he could sit next to his older sister.

Emma's mouth fell open as she sat up, with Tamsin still firmly clinging to her abdomen, she had thought that it would take some work for her little brother to ever agree to be in the same room as her, let alone be sharing the same space. But then she thought about his words and smiled, he knew that the saviour and the Dark One were two different people, so he didn't think of the woman who hurt him as his sister.

Neal nestled into her side and the blonde took a moment to smile at the forgiving boy, before she felt all of the eyes on her and looked over to everyone.

She had to admit that it was rather strange to see all of the doubles staring back at her, but it also reaffirmed for her that she wanted to leave this place.

The time that Zelena had chosen to go back to was one of the most difficult in her life, it was somehow worse for her than even the worst foster home, because she was prepared for them after a certain amount of time.

Everything that happened after the curse broke, was not something she could control, she couldn't just pretend that she had no emotions about everything going on because she now had these two people who were basically interested in her every thought and move and that terrified her.

In the future, though, she had managed to work through her issues, she had allowed herself to be happy and she never wanted to go back to the days when she refused to call Snow 'mom' because it felt weird, or when she would never have allowed her father to protect her out of some kind of misplaced pride. Now that everything was how it should be, she just wanted to go home and have a normal night with her family.

It was for that reason that it didn't take her long to deduce that everyone clearly had a plan and she definitely wanted to know what it was.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"Rumple has found a way to ensure that no one remembers, but to make sure that everyone does what they should have after the curse broke, we need to place them how they were at the moment that the curse broke," Cora explained, "we're trying to make a plan to get a town full of people to comply…"

Emma nodded her understanding, she could imagine that it would be difficult to get everyone to tell them. There were many would tell them without question as long as the Charmings asked, but everyone involved in the mob would know that the plan would involve helping Regina, which was not something that any of them would be interested in doing.

"Okay…" she sighed, she had truly hoped that she wouldn't have to stay here long, "what can I do?"

Regina grabbed a notebook and walked over to her, sitting down on the edge of the bed without a second thought, she showed her the list they had compiled, "we need to find out where these people were and then we can send them all to that position just as Rumple casts the memory curse."

The blonde nodded and almost rolled her eyes at the extensive list, shifting to free one of her arms, she waved her hand and a dreamcatcher appeared in a cloud of white smoke.

"I guess we should get started then," she sighed.

* * *

"Do you really think this could work?" **[Snow]** asked nervously looking around the area around the wishing well.

"We have no idea what could happen to the timeline if it doesn't, so you should hope," Regina replied and the princess blinked a couple of times at the lack of bite in her tone. She was glad that she had many years to get used to this version of her former-stepmother, the version that she actually liked.

As she looked down the line of all of their future counterparts, she couldn't help but smile, a smile that didn't even falter when she noticed Emma and Regina's joined hands, though, she was sure that she would be freaking out about it if she wasn't about to lose her memory.

"So…" **[Charming]** began awkwardly, he truly had no idea how to say goodbye to these people, he wasn't even sure if it was necessary, but after everything that happened, he felt that they couldn't just leave without a word. He heard a little scoff but didn't even bother to look up to see **[Regina]** roll her eyes, which also meant that he missed **[Emma's]** smirk at the woman's response.

"Emma and Regina have the power open the portal back to their time and just before they do so they'll send everyone in town to the position they were in when the curse broke," Cora explained, watching as the past version of her husband work at the well.

Each past person nodded, agreeing to this plan and they all returned to silence, until finally Rumple turned to the group with an expression that was all business.

They all understood what his look meant and each of them seemed to looking intently at their mirror image, before smoke engulfed each of them, returning them to where they were when the curse broke.

Rumple looked over to the group standing next to him and allowed a small smile to tug at the corner of his lips as his eyes fell on Regina hand-in-hand with her wife and three children standing next to them.

For a second, he allowed himself to hope that Regina wasn't going to suffer much before she got to this point and he realised that they were all waiting for him to do something.

Clearing his throat, he reminded himself that they didn't have long to make sure that everyone remained where they were.

"We don't have much time," he reminded them, not seeing the point of saying some kind of farewell.

A moment of silence passed, before Emma and Regina focused their magic to reopen the portal that they had been using to travel through time.

Charming reached down and picked up the sedated Wicked Witch who would be returning to her cell in the institute, while Arthur's body had been sent back to Camelot to allow his people to carry out the appropriate funeral rites.

With a final glance at the bellowing smoke, each person took a deep breath and entered the swirling vortex that appeared before them.

Within a split second, they all disappeared and Rumple was left alone.

He stared at the spot where they vanished for a second, taking a moment to appreciate what was to come, before he turned around and whispered the final step of the curse and closed his eyes as the smoke sprung out and engulfed the entire town.

A full five seconds later, he opened his eyes and looked around the empty clearing, "what the hell am I doing here?" he said to himself.

A moment later, he disappeared, going make to his shop to finalise his plans with the wraith.

* * *

-The future-

"That's wonderful news," Regina sighed contently, holding the phone next to her ear.

"Rumple has centuries worth of sleep to catch up on," Cora laughed on the other end of the device, "though I'm sure he would appreciate you bringing Henry, Tamsin and Emily over for lunch tomorrow."

"Definitely," the brunette replied.

"How is Tamsin?"

"I think she's feeling better, especially now that she has her 'mommy' to tell her a bed time story," the former Evil Queen said, completely incapable of keeping the smile off her face, just knowing that her wife was in the mansion made her so much happier.

"Speaking of which, I should probably leave you alone for some much deserved time with Emma," her mother said and she could practically hear the smile on her face.

"Thank you," the brunette sighed, "could you tell Rumple that I said good night?"

"Of course, dear."

After a quick goodbye, Regina hung up the phone and snuggled into bed, taking a moment to consider how everything had turned out completely perfect, which was no something she would have ever associated with going back in time.

When they had first arrived back in Storybrooke, everyone had been so worried that there would be something different, but everything looked as it had when they had left, with the exception of the Dark One.

There was a tentative knock at the door and Regina looked up with a furrowed brow as she saw that it was a very nervous looking blonde.

"Why are you knocking?" she laughed.

Emma bit her lip and shook her head, "I haven't been in here in a while…"

"Which is precisely why you shouldn't be wasting time knocking," the older woman urged.

The saviour smiled at this, and walked over to the bed, easily slipping into the space that she had wanted to sleep in during her many sleepless nights.

They lay in silence for a moment, before Emma said, "hey."

The brunette laughed lightly and replied, "hey," as she took the initiative and lay scooted closer to her, placing her head on her shoulder.

As by muscle memory, Emma brought her arm around her wife's waist and she allowed all of her senses to be filled with the woman she loved.

They remained in silence for a few moments, they both knew that they had a lot to talk about, but they certainly wouldn't be doing it tonight.

"I was thinking…" Emma began, and instantly she felt brown orbs looking up at her attentively, "since it's been a while…maybe we should go on a date tomorrow…"

"I'm not sure how you can match a trip to the past…"

The blonde let out a mock exasperated sigh and said, "mom said she'll take the kids."

"That sounds wonderful."

* * *

-Nine years ago-

 **[Regina]** looked up disinterestedly at the door from which a knock had just sounded.

After six difficult months, she had finally gotten something resembling happiness. Apparently, to earn her son's approval, all she had to do was travel to Neverland with the two people she couldn't stand, plus the saviour and captain guyliner, and she had to endure a week of absolute hell, before bringing him back home safely.

Even if things had been more than difficult, she honestly didn't care what hardships she had to endure, especially now that she had her son firmly back in her life. Though, she did find it rather strange that she didn't mind being some kind of parenting team with **[Emma]** in fact, it worked surprisingly well, the three of them had even began spending time together as a 'family', not that was what **[Regina]** would ever refer to their situation as.

"Come in," the brunette called.

The door opened a split second later and a very familiar blonde entered clutching a two to-go coffees.

"Miss Swan?" the mayor asked with a furrowed brow, they had certainly been spending more time together, and there was this strange sense of calmness between the pair, but the brunette had yet to fully grasp what the saviour had come to terms with just the week before.

 **[Emma]** smiled nervously at the woman and scurried over, placing the cup on her desk.

The brunette continued to stare at the clearly nervous woman questioningly, before she finally cleared her throat and said, "is there something I can help you with, sheriff?"

The blonde bit her lip and after a second of thought, she fell into the seat opposite the mayor and replied, "I was just in the diner and noticed that you didn't come in for your lunch time coffee, I figured you would need caffeine…"

 **[Regina]** tilted her head, she got this strange feeling in her stomach, like any time that the saviour did something so considerate for her, something that she had been doing more often since they had returned from Neverland.

"I was rather busy trying to catch up on all of the paperwork that piled up during our little adventure, so…thank you…Miss Swan."

 **[Emma]** nodded and clasped her hands together with an adorable little smile and the brunette quickly shook her head a looked back down at her work to ignore that she had just thought of the daughter of her sworn enemies as 'adorable'.

For a minute, the mayor continued to write, before she tilted her head when she felt eyes on her and looked up, realising that the other woman was still there, "is there something else?"

"Er…" the saviour's shouldered slumped and she started looking around the office, obviously trying to find a reason to stay, but finally she seemed to decide that there was nothing that could help her to be near the object of her affection and she stood.

"I guess not…" she sighed and turned to leave.

 **[Regina]** tilted her head and allowed the pen in her hand to drop from her hand as she considered the blonde was somehow disappointed.

"Emma," she called and the woman quickly turned around with a hopeful expression, "are you sure there wasn't something else?"

"Well…that depends…" **[Emma]** replied, walking back over to the desk.

"On?"

"Well, on one hand, if you say yes, it would be awesome, but if you said no, it would be completely awkward and you are technically my boss, even though we're friends…well not close friends but I feel like we're closer than we were, like we don't hate each other anymore. But us being friends could make it even more awkward, plus we have Henry to think abo…"

The sheriff stopped her rambling when she realised that the brunette had her hand held up and was smirking slightly at her, "as amusing as your inarticulate rambling is, Miss Swan, I'm afraid that I still have no idea what you expect me to say no to."

 **[Emma]** nodded and stuck her hands in her pocket, she had a feeling that there was no way out of this now, so she just went for it, "I was talking to Mary Margaret about Neverland and she noticed something that I hadn't really thought about before…"

"Do you expect me to sit here and listen to one of your mother's theories?" **[Regina]** quipped.

"Regina, can you just listen?" the blonde growled, she had no idea how she could like this frustrating woman, but it was kind of one of the things she liked about her.

The brunette opened her mouth to retort, but she sensed that this was more important than any sassy comment she could make, so she just nodded.

"She noticed how we kept protecting each other…and the way I looked at you, she said that she was freaked out by it at first, which is why she took so long to mention it…anyway…she made me realise that I may actually have some kind…"

The mayor watched the other woman ramble and throughout all of it, a smile was blooming on her face when she realised what was happening.

The blonde was looking firmly at the ground as she spoke, so she didn't notice halfway through that **[Regina]** stood up from her desk and walked over to her. At least, she didn't notice until the older woman was standing right in front of her when she finally looked up.

 **[Emma]** took a moment to assess the closeness, and she gulped nervously as words failed her, a slight blush running up her neck.

The brunette smiled at the reaction that completely confirmed everything she had hoped to be true, and then she leaned forward to capture the blonde's lips in her own, in a short but sweet peck.

She leaned back and almost laughed as she inspected the saviour's face, it looked as if her mind had short-circuited.

"Emma," she whispered, which seemed to make said woman blink out of her shock.

The blonde cleared her throat and tried to refocus on her surroundings, "yeah?" she asked in a somewhat hoarse voice.

"You can pick me up at eight and you need to ask your parents to watch Henry," **[Regina]** said casually as she regally took a seat back at her desk. The smile that she couldn't hide was the only sign that anything was different from a few minutes ago.

The other woman nodded once and the twice, before she allowed a smile to creep across her face, as everything began to become very real to her, "I guess I'll see you later then your majesty."

 **A/N I hope you guys enjoyed**

 **I need to thank QueenApples for always being an awesome beta and PerditusFic for always answering my really random questions haha**

 **Please let me know what you thought and thanks for reading XD**


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